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AUTHORITY 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  AUTHORITY  IN  LIFE 

AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  LEGALISM 

IN  ETHICS  AND  RELIGION 


A.  V.  C.  P.  HUIZINGA 

Author  of  ''Belief  in  a  Personal  God 
* '  The  American  Philosophy  Pragmatism 
'•  The  Authority  of  Might  and  Right,"  etc 


"  Without  authority— the  objective  norm  of  truth  and  value — 
and  faith — repose  in  it  as  our  immediate  standard — life  could 
not  well  be  lived.  Is  it  not  strange,  therefore,  that  those  vi^ho 
are  willing:  slaves  to  the  idols  of  our  day  should  clamor  for  free- 
dom from  all  restraint,  and  raise  an  outcry  against  all  legitimate 
authority  ?" 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 

1911 


Copyright,  1911 
Sherman,  French  &•  Company 


TO 

DR.  FRANCIS  L.  PATTON 

PRINCETON'S  ABLE  AND  INSPIRING 
DEFENDER  OF  THE  CALVINISTIC  FAITH 

THESE  PAGES  ARE  GRATEFULLY 
INSCRIBED 


PREFACE 

In  the  following  pages  is  presented  a  general 
survey  of  the  subject  of  authority.  The  author 
has  gone  afield  to  bring  out  authority's  func- 
tion in  life  with  special  reference  to  legalism  in 
ethics  and  religion.  Law  brooks  no  interfer- 
ence. Though  God's  law  needs  no  vindication 
by  the  evidence  of  impending  penalties  and  re- 
wards, its  vindication  is  written  upon  the  heart 
of  man  with  unmistakable  anticipations.  Hu- 
man law  and  prevailing  custom  require  con- 
formity by  force.  This  outward  conformity, 
however,  pre-supposes  at  least  the  capacity, 
and  the  law  aims  at  a  willingness  of  the 
individual  to  follow  its  prescribed  course  or  rule. 
This  is  done  on  authority,  in  faith.  We  believe 
in  the  thing  prescribed,  recommended,  enjoined. 
The  community  as  a  whole  endorses  the  regula- 
tions in  force  over  its  individuals  or  members. 
It  is  not  a  matter  which  is  reasoned  out,  or  ra- 
tionally justified.  It  is  done  for  us,  we  accept 
its  right,  recognize  its  authority,  we  believe,  we 
exercise  faith. 

This  is  individual  activity,  operating  in  so- 
ciety, it  has  metaphysical  implications,  and  its 


PREFACE 

highest  sanctions  are  found  in  the  theological 
sphere.  In  the  first  part  of  this  volume  are 
especially  treated  the  psychological  and  socio- 
logical; in  the  second  part,  the  metaphysical  and 
theological  aspect  of  authority. 

The  discussion,  moreover,  has  special  refer- 
ence to  the  present  trend  of  theological  opinion. 
Quotations  are  numerous,  though  they  are  used 
as  illustrations  rather  than  as  authority.  Still, 
the  weight  of  expert  opinion,  of  course,  may  be 
used  as  corroborative  evidence  in  argument.  If 
this  essay  does  not  convince,  it  may  at  least 
clarify  some  notions  regarding  the  subject;  or, 
better  still,  it  may  occasion  abler  scholars  to  give 
it  deserved  attention.  For  one  thing  is  certain: 
Authority  must  become  the  most  vital  question 
for  an  age  which — rightly  or  wrongly — tends  to 
challenge  its  established  forms. 

A.  V.  C.  P.  HUIZINGA. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
PSYCHOLOGICAL  AND  SOCIOLOGICAL  ASPECT 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Authority  and  Liberty i 

II.  Church  and  State 12 

III.  Moral  Authority 38 

IV.  Moral  Obligation 49 

V.  The  Personal  Element  in  Law    ...  55 

VI.     Roman    Catholicism    and   Freedom    of 

Conscience 62 

VII.     Legalism  in  Morals  and  Religion     .      .  71 

VIII.     Individual  Will 83 

IX.     Authority  and  Philosophy     ....  89 
X.     Philosophies  of  the  Day  and  Revealed 

Authority         96 

PART  II 

METAPHYSICAL  AND  THEOLOGICAL  ASPECT 

XI.     Individualism  and  Legalism    ....    107 
XII.     Sabatier's  View  of  Authority     .     .     .113 

XIII.  Hegel's  Doctrine  of  the  State  and  Au- 

thority     124 

XIV.  Authority  and  Fact 136 

XV.    Bible  Authority 143 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XVI.  An  Objective  Source  of  Authority      .   167 

XVII.  Pragmatism  and  Authority    .     .      .      .177 

XVIII.  Faith  and  Authority 186 

XIX.  Kant  on  Authority 195 

XX.  Materialistic  Tendencies  and  Ritsch- 

LIANISM 201 

XXI.     Science  and  Faith 212 

XXII.     Pragmatism  Subversive  of  Authority    .  221 

XXIII.  Subjectivism  and  Truth 233 

XXIV.  Needs  and  Utility 245 

XXV.    The    Source    and    Guarantee    of    Au- 
thority    261 


PART  I 

PSYCHOLOGICAL  AND 
SOCIOLOGICAL  ASPECT 


CHAPTER  I 
AUTHORITY  AND  LIBERTY 

It  was  quite  characteristic  of  our  age,  and  cer- 
tainly of  the  gathering  assembled,  when  Dr. 
George  A.  Gordon  raised  a  storm  of  approving 
applause  at  the  International  Congress  of  Re- 
ligious Liberals  held  in  Boston,  September  22-27, 
1907,  with  the  remark  "The  loss  sustained  by 
the  Christian  world  through  the  reign  of  author- 
ity is  incalculable."  It  is  said  on  every  hand 
that  for  a  true  development  of  the  inner  life,  one 
may  not  be  subject  to  any  outward  restraint. 
We  must  strike  out  along  our  own  lines, — not 
walk  by  chalk-marks,  but  according  to  our  own 
nature.  We  are  to  be  true  to  our  own  selves. 
Inasmuch  as  we  ourselves  are  the  acting  party  in 
all  things,  we  are  not  to  be  determined  by  arbi- 
trary directions.  The  very  idea  of  personality, 
of  responsibility,  of  private  initiative,  of  indi- 
vidual significance,  the  entire  personal  equation, 
opposes  itself  to  any  pressure  of  external  re- 
straints. 

In  ethical  theories  this  individualism  is  repre- 
sented in  the  pleas  for  self-realization.  The 
vague  notion  of  self-realization,  however,   can 


2  AUTHORITY 

hardly  become  the  basis  of  social  relations  and 
morals,  if  conceived  according  to  the  phrase 
which  proclaims  "society  versus  the  individual," 
and  always  insists  that  corporate  society  is  to  a 
large  extent  incommensurable  with  personal  in- 
dividuality. There  is  no  allowance  made  for  in- 
ter-determination, that  the  individual  may  be  de- 
termined as  well  extrinsically  as  intrinsically; 
and  again  that  these  determinations  sustain  the 
closest  relation  each  to  the  other  is  left  out  of  ac- 
count. The  atomistic  conception  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  insisted  upon.  It  has  been  said  that 
this  "mere  individual"  is  an  abstraction  of  logic, 
with  which  philosophy  has  burdened  the  world. 
It  is,  however,  more  correct  to  maintain  that  the 
notion  of  the  isolated,  separate  individual  has 
become  persistently  prominent  in  popular  views. 
Professor  James  H.  Tuft  says  in  "The  Indi- 
vidual and  His  Relation  to  Law  and  Institu- 
tions": "It  is  the  merit  of  Hobbes  to  have  set 
the  individual  in  the  forefront  of  discussion,  and 
to  have  used  him  as  the  indispensable  agency  for 
the  authorization  of  power."  Hobbes'  self,  how- 
ever, is  the  self  of  war  in  which  interests  are  ex- 
clusive, not  the  self  of  commerce  in  which  they 
are  mutual.  Thus  his  self  is  not  bound  to  the 
fellow  individuals  by  anything  except  the  civil 
authority,  which  by  its  police-duty  calls  out  our 
individualistic    ethics    in    conformity    with    it. 


AUTHORITY  AND  LIBERTY        3 

There  is,  however,  an  essentially  social  setting  of 
the  individual  life.  However  much  the  abso- 
lutely personal  element  is  centered  in  every  in- 
dividual, however  unique  and  one's  own,  yet  each 
man  realizes  his  personality  among  men  as  a  so- 
cial being.  The  ethical  and  rehgious  contents 
of  man's  life  have  been  developed  and  have 
taken  form  historically  in  social  relations. 
Saint  Simon  says:  "Humanity  is  a  collective  be- 
ing which  develops.  It  has  grown  from  gener- 
ation to  generation  as  a  single  man  grows  in 
successive  years."  (L'humanite  est  un  etre  col- 
lectif  qui  se  developpe.  Cet  etre  a  grandi  de 
generations  en  generations  comme  un  seul 
homme  grandit  dans  la  succession  des  annees.) 
Condorcet  expresses  the  same  thought  when  he 
says:  "The  material  and  moral  evolution  of  so- 
cieties forms  a  long  and  indissoluble  chain  to 
which  the  successive  generations  incessantly  add 
links."  (L'evolution  materielle  et  morale  des 
societes  forme  une  longue  et  indissoluble  chaine 
a  la  laquelle  les  generations  successives  ajoutent 
sans  cesse  des  anneaux.") 

In  modern  literature  the  individual  claims  are 
prominently  brought  forward,  and  their  indul- 
gence advocated  at  the  expense  of  traditional  so- 
cial restraints.  "Self-realization"  figures  large 
as  a  motto  in  modern  realism.  Love  overrides 
law.     Even  the  passions   should  know  no   re- 


4  AUTHORITY 

straint.  Insistently  is  dwelt  on  things  as  they 
are.  With  the  Christian  in  weakness  is 
strength;  in  realism  its  strength  is  its  weakness, 
in  that  its  passion  for  reality  discards  idealism 
to  the  extent  of  leaving  us  in  a  mass  of  dis- 
ordered, conflicting  facts,  the  most  faithful  por- 
trayal of  which  will  create  only  the  most  jarring 
discord.  Whatever  claims,  therefore,  the  realis- 
tic schools  may  make  as  representative  of  an  aes- 
thetic appreciation  of  life,  it  must  be  firmly 
maintained  that  they  fail  of  that  harmony  which 
is  required  bj^  the  beautiful,  just  as  they  fail  in 
that  right  proportion  and  emphasis  which  is  re- 
quired by  the  truth. 

Authority  always  involves  a  ruhng  principle 
which  subjects  the  individual  to  its  regulations, 
though  this  need  not  necessarily  involve  the  sup- 
pression of  his  natural  functions. 

Liberty  is  a  negative  idea  which  denotes  the 
absence  of  restraint.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be 
an  aim  in  itself.  It  may  be  fully  realized  in  the 
experience  of  the  individual  when  he  finds  him- 
self entirely  in  accord  with  the  codified,  larger 
experience  of  society.  Such  a  condition  would 
exclude  the  possibility  of  conflict,  and  legislation 
ah  extra  would  be  superfluous.  But  this  is  prac- 
tically inconceivable  either  in  single  cases  or 
among  any  people  in  general.  On  this  account 
the  dreams  of  anarchistic  societies,  which  would 


AUTHORITY  AND  LIBERTY        5 

dispense  with  all  laws,  are  purely  ideal  and  could 
be  realized  only  at  the  very  end  of  social  prog- 
ress. As  an  attainable  social  state,  they  are 
indeed  "diablement  ideal." 

It  is  equally  evident,  however,  that  neither 
laws  nor  governing  bodies  can  be  considered  as 
ends  in  themselves,  since  they  are  simply  a  kind 
of  tangible,  objective  medium  of  adjustment  be- 
tween the  single,  individual  life  and  the  corpo- 
rate wisdom  of  longer  and  larger  experience. 
As  Fichte  well  remarked: 

"The  state  will  ultimately  end  as  will  all  human  insti- 
tutions which  are  merely  means ;  the  aim  of  all  govern- 
ment is  to  make  government  superfluous."  ("Der 
Staat  geht,  wie  alle  menschliche  Institute,  die  blosse 
Mittel  sind,  auf  seine  eigene  Vernichtung  aus ;  es  ist 
der  Zweck  aller  Regierung,  die  Regierung  iiberfliissig 
zu  machen.") 

The  alleged  antithesis  between  individual  life 
and  social  authority  is  as  unwarranted  as  are  the 
extreme  claims  for,  and  emphasis  on  their  re- 
spective positions.  The  customary  antitheses 
that  we  meet  in  every-day  life  tend  to  cause  a 
certain  one-sidedness  which  emphasizes  one  view 
at  the  expense  of  the  other.  The  reaction  from 
the  old  conception  of  "mankind  in  general,"  to 
which  corresponded  a  "typical  man,"  has  left  us 
only  an   aggregate   of  individuals.     From   the 


6  AUTHORITY 

fact  that  we  do  know  social  morality  as  an  ob- 
jective code  of  observance  (as  public  opinion, 
etc.)  only  from  the  individuals  which  constitute 
society,  it  has  been  wrongly  inferred  that  the 
single  individual  by  himself  exemplifies  the  func- 
tions of  man  as  in  society;  for,  as  Enrico  Ferri 
says,  "in  psychological  phenomena  the  union  of 
several  individuals  never  yields  a  result  like  that 
which  one  would  expect  from  the  sum  of  them 
severally." 

In  a  time  of  thorough  sociological  and  psycho- 
logical study  the  capitalized  and  transmitted  ex- 
periences and  their  unceasing  re-actions  upon  the 
individual  life  are  investigated.  Thus  we  make 
use  of  such  expressions  as  "social  mind,"  "col- 
lective consciousness,"  "national  spirit,"  "Zeit- 
geist," "public  opinion,"  "conventionality," 
"folk-psychology,"  all  of  which  are  metaphors; 
pregnant  meanings  which  cannot  be  explained 
by  the  phenomena  of  individual  psychology. 
Of  course  the  individual's  consciousness  is 
affected  by  the  relation  he  bears  to  others.  Pro- 
fessor Baldwin  observes  rightly,  "Modern 
psychology  as  well  as  studies  in  religion  and  so- 
ciology demonstrate  the  interdependence  of  in- 
dividual and  society,"  but  "in  ethical  (and  re- 
ligious) judgments  the  social  sanction  is  admin- 
istered by  the  individual  conscience."  Mental 
Development,  Chap.  X.     Although,  therefore, 


J 


AUTHORITY  AND  LIBERTY        7 

in  Professor  Baldwin's  study  in  psychology  the 
growth  of  the  individual  soul  is  traced  in  genetic 
method  till  all  the  essential  features  of  the  moral 
and  religious  man  have  appeared,  he  leaves  the 
moral  issues  with  the  individual.  Thus  his  valu- 
able prize  essay,  while  clearing  away  the  opposi- 
tion between  society  and  the  individual,  vindi- 
cates a  personal  responsibility. 

It  has  often  been  asserted  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  individual  morality,  and  Roman  Catho- 
lic scholars  have  charged  against  the  Protestant 
position  an  extreme  individualism,  which  is  not 
held  by  the  evangelical  churches  of  Protestant- 
ism. The  content  of  a  strictly  individual  mor- 
ality or  religion  is  indeed  quite  inconceivable. 
The  content  and  form  of  moral  and  religious  life 
are  derived  from  the  relations  in  which  individ- 
uals are  placed.  The  tendency,  however,  to 
seek  the  origin  of  the  moral  and  rehgious  life  in 
the  social  relations  under  which  it  develops,  is 
faulty.  Scholars  holding  very  different  points 
of  view  agree  that  the  moral  sentiment,  and 
therefore  the  religious  impulse,  is  unanalyzable, 
not  reducible  to  social  effects.  And  though 
such  genetic  theories  have  often  been  supported 
by  a  large  array  of  alleged  facts,  they  have  never 
proved  to  be  convincing. 

The  question  is  like  the  transferring  of  the 
emphasis  in  the  Lord's  command:  "Thou  shalt 


8  AUTHORITY 

love  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy 
soul  and  with  all  thy  strength,  and  with  all  thy 
mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself"  (Luke  x, 
27).  The  modern  socializing  tendency  has 
shifted  the  emphasis  from  the  first  command, 
which  is  basal,  and  wliich  in  a  sense  includes  the 
second.  It  begs  the  question  by  the  conclusion 
that  the  resulting  social  morality  is  to  be  identi- 
fied with  the  loving  of  God,  because  it  is  the 
way  in  which  to  express  itself. 

Professor  H.  Visscher  gives  expression  to  this 
idea  in  a  recent  work  on  comparative  rehgion, 
"Religie  en  Gemeenschap  by  de  natuurvolken" 
(Utrecht,  1907).  AVhile  recognizing  that  our 
age  rightly,  to  some  extent,  approaches  religion 
as  an  organic  development,  especially  in  the 
field  of  comparative  religion,  he  observes  that 
most  social  facts  that  are  codified  expressions  of 
social  life,  such  as  language,  law,  and  customs,  as 
well  as  the  forms  of  religion,  are  7iot  made  by 
man,  but  have  rather  grown  to  be  what  thej^  are. 

The  analogy  between  the  physical  and  psychi- 
cal, between  matter  and  spirit,  can  never  lead 
to  an  identification  of  the  genetic  processes  of 
the  two  spheres,  especially  when  there  is  an  evi- 
dent inclination  to  subsume  the  spiritual  under 
the  material.  The  complex  expression  of  re- 
ligious life  is  a  result  of  the  social  life,  and  regu- 
lates the  individual,  who  is,  however,   autono- 


AUTHORITY  AND  LIBERTY        9 

mous  neither  in  language,  law,  morality,  nor 
religion.  All  these  expressions  of  social  life  go 
back  to  the  psychic  life  of  the  individuals  that 
compose  society.  Religio  subjectiva  concerns 
primarily  man  as  man;  it  assumes  social  forms 
simply  because  man  Hves  in  society  and  thus  fits 
in  an  organic  whole.  But  it  is  a  wholly  wrong 
view  that  endeavors  to  explain  religion  and  mor- 
ality in  themselves  as  an  outgrowth  of  social 
forms.  If  man  is  incurably  religious,  then  we 
can  hardly  make  religion  and  morality  in  its  es- 
sence an  epiphenomenon  of  social  life.  They 
rather  cement  and  control  social  life.  And  this 
is  the  meaning  which  a  Frenchman  expressed  in 
the  words:  "Le  Saint  Esprit  c'est  Dieu  social." 
Even  Spencer,  though  championing  the  cause 
of  individualism  under  the  phrase  "man  versus 
the  state,"  freely  admits  the  organic  relation  and 
natural  interplay  between  the  individual  and  the 
milieu  in  the  midst  of  which  he  has  grown  up. 
In  his  "Principles  of  Psychology"  (sects.  208, 
216)  he  says:  "The  individual  cannot  sunder  a 
conjunction  thus  deeply  rooted  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  race";  hence,  he  is  born  into  the  world 
with  those  psychical  connections  which  form  the 
substrata  of  "necessary  truths."  In  his  "First 
Principles"  (sect.  53),  he  says:  "Absolute  uni- 
formities of  experience  generate  absolute  uni- 
formities of  thought."     Thus  it  may  be   seen 


10  AUTHORITY 

that,  however  much  the  absolutely  personal  ele- 
ment is  centered  in  every  individual,  however  en- 
tirely unique  and  one's  own,  yet  each  realizes  his 
personality  among  men  as  a  social  being.  The 
ethical  and  religious  contents  of  man's  hfe  have 
been  developed  and  have  taken  form  historically 
in  social  relations. 

The  individual  finds  a  standard  for  compari- 
son, and  material  to  assimilate,  in  the  terms  of 
life  as  expressed  in  the  personal  experiences  and 
judgments  around  him.  And  these  principles, 
often  authoritative,  influence  his  unconscious  ap- 
plication, as  he  strives  consciously  to  realize  his 
ethical  ideals  and  religious  life  under  the  stimu- 
lus of  personal  relations.  The  importance  of 
the  individual  standpoint  is  thus  brought  out, 
and  the  claims  for  personality  are  rendered 
significant,  because  of  the  prime  factor  of  indi- 
vidual life  in  social  life.  But  we  must  also  per- 
ceive that  the  authority  of  society  is  fraught  with 
life-experiences  akin  to  those  known  to  the  indi- 
vidual, and  this  renders  the  social,  ethical,  and 
religious  codes  less  external  as  regulative  law. 
Professor  Giddings  made  a  contribution  to  the 
study  of  societary  phenomena  in  his  conception 
of  "consciousness  of  kind,"  but  failed  to  give  it 
a  proper  setting  in  social  life.  It  is  plain  that 
the  question  whether  authority  should  be  lodged 
with  the  individual,  or  with  the  legal  construe- 


AUTHORITY  AND  LIBERTY      11 

tions  of  larger  experience,  cannot  be  treated  in 
categorical  fashion.  We  must  rather  inquire 
how  the  individual  is  related  to  the  "stored-up, 
codified  racial  experience."  Professor  James 
says :  "The  legal  tradition  enters  the  mind  of  the 
vast  majority  of  citizens  in  a  vague  way  at  best. 
It  is  clearly  conscious  in  the  thought  of  a  special 
class  only,  which,  however,  may  be  regarded  as 
the  social  organ  of  that  particular  function  of 
the  collective  mind."  That  this  relation,  how- 
ever, is  an  essential  and  real  one,  is  assumed  in 
all  educational  efforts,  which  aim  so  to  adapt  the 
individual  to  his  surroundings  that  he  may  fit  in 
the  social  setting  with  the  least  waste  of  mental 
energy.  Dr.  G.  E.  Vincent  says  in  an  essay 
entitled  "The  Social  Mind  and  Education": 
"Education  sets  before  itself  the  task  of  relating 
the  individual  intrinsically  to  the  social  tradition 
so  that  he  may  become  an  organic  part  of  so- 
ciety." This  question  as  to  the  relation  of  the 
state  to  the  individual  raises  the  problem  of 
reconciling  authority  and  liberty,  law  and  indi- 
vidualism, and  as  such  constitutes  the  social  as- 
pect of  our  inquiry. 


CHAPTER  II 
CHURCH  AND  STATE 

The  need  of  this  ultimate  authorization  has 
been  felt  by  both  church  and  state  alike  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  earthly  power.  The  church  ruling  over 
the  corporate  body  of  believers  who  give  assent 
to  her  order  and  doctrine  does  not  need  to  estab- 
lish her  claims.  But  what  is  her  authority  over 
those  who  are  outside?  Some  have  answered,  It 
is  to  "go  out  into  the  highways  and  hedges,  and 
compel  them  to  come  in,"  forgetting  that,  in 
view  of  her  mission,  the  compulsion  of  the  church 
cannot  be  one  of  outward  restraint.  The  church 
endeavors  to  win  people:  the  state  controls 
people.  There  is  thus  a  wide  chasm  between 
church  and  state.  To  the  church  belongs  the 
higher,  more  definite  sanction,  but  to  the  state 
the  wider  range.  To  the  church  is  given  a  posi- 
tive commission  to  fulfill,  to  the  state  mainly  the 
vindication  of  its  laws.  The  state  therefore  re- 
mains always  more  impersonal  in  its  regulations 
than  the  church,  and,  having  power  of  fact,  may 
vindicate  its  authority  by  a  rational  rule  of  its 
subjects.  A  difficult  question  is  raised  as 
whether  the  state  shall  rule  the  church,  or  the 

12 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  13 

church  the  state.  May  the  admittedly  more  im- 
personal rule  of  the  state  be  allowed  authority 
over  the  church,  which  claims  a  more  personal 
relation  with  the  Source  of  all  authority?  Or 
may  the  church,  including  only  the  believers,  ex- 
tend her  rules,  naturally  more  specific,  over  the 
M^hole  of  society.  A  practical,  working  solution 
has,  of  course,  been  found  by  allowing  state  and 
church  to  some  extent  their  own  respective 
spheres,  even  where  either  of  them  sways  su- 
perior power.  A  practical  merger  of  the  two 
functions  is  the  true  solution, — all  the  secular, 
governmental  functions  sanctioned  and  per- 
meated by  Christian  belief  and  principle. 

Phillips  Brooks  discusses  tliis  in  gingerly 
fashion  in  his  address  on  "The  Influence  of  Jesus 
on  the  Social  Life  of  Man." 

"I  know  that  here  is  the  essence  of  what  most  men, 
as  they  look  at  history,  are  apt  to  dread  to-day,  of  a 
theocracy,  of  a  religious  state  and  of  a  state  religion. 
If  this  which  I  have  said  be  true,  if  the  state  and  its 
machineries  be  valuable  to  the  Christian  patriot,  as  his 
state  was  valuable  to  Jesus,  because  of  the  spiritual 
interests  which  they  enshrine,  because  of  the  family 
life  of  man  with  God  which  they  represent,  then  why 
should  he  not  ask  that  the  state  should  manifest  its 
spiritual  function  to  the  fullest  degree  by  becoming  dis- 
tinctively and  openly  the  minister  of  Christ?  Why 
should  he  not  ask  that  Christianity,  as  he  conceives  it, 


14  AUTHORITY 

and  as  it  seems  to  him  to  be  unspeakably  important, 
should  be  taught  in  the  state  schools?  Nay,  why 
should  he  not  ask  that  only  men  distinctively  and  posi- 
tively Christian  in  belief  and  life  should  be  entrusted 
with  the  conduct  of  the  nation?  How  can  he  live,  how 
can  he  be  a  patriot,  in  any  land  which  is  as  purely  sec- 
ular in  its  administration  as  all  our  lands  are  growing 
more  and  more  to  be?  It  is  an  urgent  question.  We 
can  only  find  its  answer,  I  think,  in  two  considerations 
which  no  man  can  ignore.  One  is  that  the  ideas  and 
methods  of  spiritual  men  and  even  of  Christian  men, 
are  so  divergent  from  one  another  that  it  is  only  on 
the  broadest  basis  of  the  most  general  purposes  of 
spiritual  life  that  they  can  meet,  not  in  their  special 
methods  of  their  special  creeds,  but  only  in  the  de- 
gree and  assertion  of  righteousness  and  truth  to  which 
all  their  methods  and  their  creeds  belong.  The  other 
consideration  is  that,  even  were  all  spiritual  men  at 
one,  they  well  might  doubt  whether  it  would  be  well 
to  make  the  government  of  their  land  the  agent  and 
maintainer  of  their  faith.  Any  machinery  of  govern- 
ment which  men  have  yet  devised  is  too  coarse  and 
clumsy  for  so  delicate  a  task  as  the  inculcation  and  en- 
couragement of  faith.  Government  works  by  compul- 
sion ;  faith  by  inspirations.  Government  lays  its 
hands  on  actions ;  faith  nestles  into  unseen  aflfections. 
Government  estimates  appearances ;  faith  looks  only 
at  realities.  And  so  government,  though  all  the  land 
were  unanimously  and  harmoniously  Christian,  would 
still  be  a  poor  minister  of  Christianity.  These  are  the 
considerations  which  make  the  Christian  man  consent 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  15 

to  live  in  a  state  whose  chosen  policy  is  secular,  and 
yet  lets  him  feel  that  there  are  unowned  spiritual  in- 
fluences and  powers  in  her  to  which  he  may  rejoice  to 
lend  his  aid.  Let  these  considerations  pass  away,  let 
all  the  spiritual  desire  and  aspiration  of  the  land  be 
fused  into  a  perfect  unanimity  of  thought  and  action, 
and  let  some  new  finer  machinery  of  governmental  ac- 
tion be  devised  or  developed  which  shall  be  capable  of 
spiritual  uses  and  then  theocracy,  a  religious  state,  a 
state  religion,  a  national  creed,  a  Christian  public  edu- 
cation, a  divine  responsibility  in  every  officer — all  these 
would  be  not  merely  conceivable,  they  would  be  the  only 
methods  which  the  Christianized  state  could  think  of 
for  a  moment.  There  would  be  nothing  secular  in  such 
a  heavenly  community  as  that.  Only  it  would  be  al- 
tered utterly  from  what  we  see  now.  It  would  be  the 
New  Jerusalem  for  which  we  hope,  and  not  the  old 
earthly  city  which  we  know  so  well.  At  present  we 
can  only  keep  it  constantly  before  our  eyes  and  always 
proclaim  it  as  the  true  ideal.  We  can,  and  I  think  we 
ought  to,  earnestly  assert,  when  men  praise  it  most 
loudly,  that  secularism,  however  we  may  accept  it 
cheerfully  as  the  only  expedient  for  the  present  time, 
is  not  the  highest  nor  the  eternal  type  of  government. 
We  may  strive,  by  that  devotion  to  the  spiritual  ele- 
ment in  national  life  which  even  pure  secularity  of 
public  methods  still  leaves  possible,  to  hasten  the  day, 
which  must  come  if  Christ  be  what  we  know  he  is,  when 
the  idea  of  Jesus  shall  be  the  shaping  and  moving 
power  of  the  Christian  state;  and  among  the  happy 
sons  of  God  the  son  of  God  shall  evidently  reign,  as 


16  AUTHORITY 

the  old  phrase  describes,  'King  of  nations  as  king  of 
saints.'  "     (Bohlen  Lectures,  1870.) 

We  remind  here  of  the  fact,  that  "Black- 
stone's  Commentaries"  give  explicitly  as  the  au- 
thoritative source  of  legislation  God's  will  and 
revelation.  We  quote:  Section  II  of  the  "Na- 
ture of  Laws  in  General." 

"Law  defined: 

"Law,  in  its  most  general  and  comprehensive  sense, 
signifies  a  rule  of  action ;  and  is  applied  indiscrimi- 
nately to  all  kinds  of  action,  whether  animate  or  inani- 
mate, rational  or  irrational.  Thus  we  say,  the  laws  of 
motion,  of  gravitation,  of  optics,  or  mechanics,  as  well 
as  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  nations.  And  it  is  a  rule 
of  action  which  is  prescribed  by  some  superior,  and 
which  the  inferior  is  bound  to  obey.  But  laws,  in  their 
more  confined  sense,  denote  the  rules,  not  of  action  in 
general,  but  of  human  action  or  conduct;  that  is  the 
precepts  by  which  man,  a  creature  endowed  with  both 
reason  and  free  will,  is  commanded  to  make  use  of 
those  faculties  in  the  general  regulation  of  his  be- 
havior. 

"Here  follows  a  discussion  of  the  law  of  nature  which 
is  stated  to  be  the  will  of  God,  such  as  that  we  should 
live  honestly,  should  hurt  nobody,  and  should  render 
to  everyone  his  dues.  This  law  of  nature  is  superior 
in  obligation  to  any  other.  In  consequence  of  the  de- 
fects of  human  reason  by  which  we  endeavor  to  know 
the  will  of  God,  there  is  made  necessary  the  revealed 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  17 

or  divine  law  found  only  in  the  holy  scriptures.  Upon 
the  law  of  nature  and  the  law  of  revelation  depend  all 
human  laws."      (Sprague's  Abridgment.) 

Charles  Zueblin  gives  in  "The  Religion  of  a 
Democrat"  his  opinion  not  only  in  favor  of  the 
separation  of  Church  and  State,  but  of  the  sub- 
ordination of  church  to  the  state,  the  church  be- 
ing really  one  of  the  state  functions  to  provide 
for  the  religious  needs  of  society. 

"The  state  must  be  supreme;  the  church  must  be 
subordinate ;  and  religion  can  only  be  free  in  the  state. 
Our  minds  have  been  so  befogged  by  the  conflict  be- 
tween church  and  state  that  we  have  grown  unable  to 
see  the  harmony  of  religion  and  society.  When  it  is 
recognized  that  every  individual  must  have  his  own  re- 
ligion, regardless  of  the  ecclesiastical  authority  to 
which  he  may  hold  allegiance,  then  it  will  be  seen  that 
only  the  state  can  facilitate  this.  The  conflict  between 
state  and  church  in  France  seems  to  throw  light  upon 
our  problem.  The  state  is  trying  to  assert  its  su- 
premacy over  the  church;  the  church,  so  far  as  it  is 
conscientious  in  its  activities,  argues  that  it  is  univer- 
sal and  therefore  superior  to  the  state.  If  it  were,  if 
they  had  such  a  national  church,  if  it  could  make  its 
claims  to  universalism  good,  would  it  not  be  loyal  to 
the  interests  of  society  as  a  whole,  and  how  can  so- 
ciety as  a  whole  be  served  except  through  the  state.'' 
The  present  organization  of  the  state  may  be  as  im- 
perfect as  the  present  organization  of  the  church,  but 


18  AUTHORITY 

the  state  is  the  only  organization  which  represents  so- 
ciety. The  church  is  the  very  imperfect,  highly  spe- 
cialized organization  of  one  of  society's  functions,  and 
if  it  actually  moralized  all  human  wants,  it  could  still 
serve  society  fully  only  as  an  instrumentality  of  the 
state.  That  the  church  has  sometimes  seemed  superior 
to  the  state  only  means  that  churchmen  have  sometimes 
been  superior  to  statesmen  in  their  capacity  for  under- 
standing the  interests  of  society  as  a  whole."  (pp. 
118fF.) 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  however,  that  the  re- 
ligious democracy  or  democratic  rehgion  of  Pro- 
fessor Zueblin  runs  into  individualism.  He  de- 
clares ; 

"Whatever  the  imperfections  of  contemporary  life, 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  state  is  organized 
society,  and  that  its  weaknesses  are  due  to  the  delega- 
tion of  some  of  its  functions  to  un-co-ordinated  insti- 
tutions. There  can  be  no  moral  stability  until  it  is 
recognized  that  the  individual  is  sovereign,  not  subject. 
Industry  lacks  efficiency,  the  church  lacks  spirituality, 
and  the  state  lacks  solidarity,  when  the  individual  is  not 
sovereign.  He  must  be  master  of  his  occupation,  of  his 
faith  and  of  his  citizenship,  or  these  are  empty  names. 
In  a  deep  and  real  sense,  democracy  is  the  only  moral- 
ity, but  democracy  must  mean  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people  in  all  human  relationships." 

If  Professor  Zueblin  goes  deep  enough,  he 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  19 

will  need  Christianity  to  guarantee  this  concep- 
tion of  democracy!  All  things  are  ours  when 
we  are  Christ's! 

Dr.  David  Jayne  Hill,  late  United  States  am- 
bassador to  Germany,  expressed  in  a  course  of 
lectures  before  Columbia  University  a  truly 
popular  conception  of  government  as  a  kind  of 
public  business-management  of  the  different  de- 
partments that  society  wants  discharged.  Thus 
he  may  well  put  aside  any  higher  authority,  and 
on  such  a  basis  scoff  at  the  affirmation  by  Em- 
peror William  of  a  beUef  in  the  divine  right  to 
govern. 

"The  state  can  no  longer  speak  or  act  irre- 
sponsibly in  the  name  of  Deity  or  clothe  itself 
in  the  garb  of  super-human  attributes  or  divine 
supremacy,"  says  Dr.  Hill,  evidently  overlook- 
ing the  fact  that  a  state  thus  speaking  or  acting 
is  bound  by  the  highest  responsibility,  and  an 
admittedly  stronger  obligation  than  where  "vox 
populi  is  vox  Dei."  The  abuses  of  popular  au- 
thority have  demonstrated  sufficiently  that  brute 
force  comes  to  displace  right  under  whatever 
great  phrases  the  politicians  may  work  their 
schemes  with  the  authorizing  populus.  And  it 
is  undeniable  that  force  comes  to  be  looked  upon 
as  a  controlling  and  authorizing  power  under 
such  a  regime.  "In  order  to  fulfill  its  mission  as 
the  guardian  of  human  rights  and  the  protago- 


20  AUTHORITY 

nist  of  law," — Dr.  Hill  asserts — "the  state  must 
be  entrusted  with  sufficient  organized  force  to 
repress  wrong-doing  and  maintain  in  all  emer- 
gencies public  order,  but  we  must  not  overlook 
the  fact  that  we  have  invested  it  with  powers 
vastly  more  enormous  than  it  has  ever  before 
possessed.  There  is,  without  doubt,  a  great 
danger  in  the  omnipotence  of  the  state.  Dur- 
ing the  greater  part  of  human  history  govern- 
ment has  been  arbitrary,  and  it  has  enshrouded 
its  right  to  be  so  in  some  halo  of  sanctity.  The 
helplessness,  dependence,  and  ignorance  of  men 
have  rendered  them  powerless  to  resist  its  as- 
sumptions. Looking  up  to  it  as  the  highest 
earthly  authority  they  have  been  taught  to  re- 
gard it  as  possessing  a  divine  prerogative.  It 
has  usually,  and  not  unnaturally,  intrenched  its 
pretensions  in  what  was  most  sacred  in  their  sen- 
timents and  consciences,  and  when  it  could  not 
dominate  them  by  superior  force  it  has  rendered 
them  passive  through  an  appeal  to  their  religious 
obligations."  Has,  indeed,  government  been 
arbitrary  during  the  greater  part  of  human  his- 
tory, and  is  the  statement  impartial,  that  it  has 
enshrouded  its  right  to  be  so  in  some  halo  of 
sanctity?  Have  people  been  specially  "taught" 
to  regard  it  as  possessing  a  divine  prerogative, 
without  regarding  it  so  themselves?  We  take 
occasion  to  remind  Dr.  Hill  that  a  great  number 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  21 

of  people — not  the  helpless,  dependent  and 
ignorant — would  maintain  with  the  German  Em- 
peror that  nothing  less  than  a  divine  right  to 
govern  constitutes  in  the  end  a  rightful  claim  to 
authority  over  the  people. 

It  is  on  account  of  this  business  point  of  view 
that  reverence  for  the  law  is  a  desideratum  in  the 
United  States. 

The  Duke  of  Harcourt  in  an  able  work, 
"Quelques  reflexions  sur  les  lois  sociales,"  might 
bring  to  Dr.  Hill's  notice  the  pervasive  influence 
and  power  of  religion  in  society,  and  incidentally 
claim  its  consequent  rights.  He  observes 
(Chapitre  II  Le  Sentiment  religieux)  : 

"Les  lois  humaines  se  proposent  le  bonheur 
d'une  societe,  la  religion  se  propose  le  bonheur 
de  I'individu;  par  la  elle  ne  s'accorde  pas  avec 
les  conceptions  de  I'homme  d'etat.  Les  lois 
humaines  ont  tou jours  sacrifie  certains  individus 
aux  necessites  sociales.  La  religion,  faite  pour 
I'individu,  ne  sacrifie  personne."  In  opening 
this  part  of  his  work  he  says:  "II  est  de  mode 
aujourd'hui  parmi  certains  hommes,  surtout 
parmi  ceux  que  le  courant  de  notre  temps  a 
portes  dans  les  fonctions  publiques,  de  con- 
siderer  la  religion,  quelle  qu'  elle  soit,  comme  un 
accessoire  dans  la  vie  d'une  societe.  lis  la  re- 
gardent  comme  un  vieux  debris  fait  pour  plaire 
aux  esprits  faibles,  et  pour  lequel,  en  leur  faveur, 


22  AUTHORITY 

on  peut  consentir  peut-etre  a  quelques  sacrifices, 
mais  a  la  condition  que  ce  ne  soit  pour  I'etat  ni 
une  depense  ni  un  embarras."  The  learned  duke 
concludes  his  work:  "les  sentiments  religieux;, 
mis  systematiquement  par  nos  hommes  politiques 
en  dehors  de  leurs  etudes,  restent  tou jours  la 
veritable  sauvegarde  de  la  societe;  les  assemblees 
politiques,  quels  que  soient  les  merites  de  leurs 
membres,  sont  des  etres  de  creations  humaines, 
des  mecanismes,  tres  utilles  sans  doute,  mais  irre- 
sponsables  par  leur  essence  meme,  et  incapables 
des  qualites  pu'on  s'obstine  a  leur  demander 
.  .  .  de  ces  diverses  propositions,  les  hommes 
d'etat  ne  tireront-ils  aucune  consequence?  Je  le 
laisse  a  leur  sagacite."      (p.  275) . 

Anatole  Leroy — Beaulieu  makes  an  emphatic 
protest  against  this  disregard  for  religion 
in  governmental  functions. 

"L'Etat  modeme,  I'etat,  athee,  I'etat  franc-ma9on, 
I'etat  nouveau,  issu  de  la  democratie,  nous  I'avons  vu  plus 
d'une  fois  ne  laissant  de  liberte  qu  a  ce  que  le  Saint- 
Siege  appelle  le  mal  et  ne  reconnaitre  de  droits  qu  a 
ce  que  I'eglise  nomme  I'erreur  .  .  .  Meconnals- 
sant  son  incompetence  doctrinale,  I'etat  democratique 
(dans  I'espece,  la  republique  de  1892)  se  laisse  volon- 
tiers  aller  a  dogmatiser  .  .  .  II  se  fait  a  I'occasion 
son  Credo  et  son  Catechisme  qu'il  enseigne  au  peuple  par 
des  catechistes  a  lui;  il  tend  a  s'arroger  le  droit  qu'il 
denie  a  Veglise  le  droit  de  fondre  les  esprits  dans  un 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  23 

moule  et  de  fa9onner  les  generations  a  sa  guise."  (La 
papaute  it  la  democratie,  p.  369  Revue  des  deux 
MoTides,  Jan.,  1892.) 

"The  modern  state,  the  atheistic  state,  the  state  of 
free-masons,  the  new  state  as  issued  forth  from 
the  democracy,  we  have  seen  it  more  than  once,  leaves 
only  liberty  for  what  the  Holy  See  calls  evil  and  recog- 
nizes only  as  rights  what  the  church  considers  error. 
Failing  to  recognize  its  incompetence  in  re- 
gard to  doctrines,  the  democratic  state  (specially  the 
republic  of  1892)  starts  readily  to  dogmatise. 
It  provides  occasionally  Creed  and  catechism  which  it 
teaches  to  the  people  by  its  own  catechisers.  It  is  in- 
clined to  arrogate  to  itself  the  right  which  it  denies  the 
church,  the  right  to  mould  and  fashion  the  mind  of  the 
people."      (The  Papacy  and  Democracy.) 

The  Catholic  standpoint  in  regard  to  this  mat- 
ter is  presented  eloquently  and  in  forceful  po- 
lemic strain  by  Monseigneur  J.  Fevre,  vicar 
general  of  Gap  and  Amiens  whose  able  pen  pro- 
duced a  great  number  of  apologetic  and  polemic 
works  in  defense  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 
In  "La  separation  de  I'eglise  et  de  I'etat,"  he  con- 
cludes that  of  right  the  sovereign  church  inde- 
pendent in  her  sphere,  in  union  with  the  state  (as 
before  the  Concordat)  ought  to  stand  over  the 
secular  power  of  state,  but  as  of  fact  he  accepts 
the  "regime  concordataire"  as  ratified  by  the 
church.     Special  notice  deserves  in  this  connec- 


24  AUTHORITY 

tion  the  emphasis  laid  upon  the  distinct  and 
separate  spheres  of  the  activity  of  church  and 
state,  whilst  it  is  nevertheless  argued  with  fervor 
that  a  separation  of  church  and  society  would  be 
fatal. 

"La  confusion  et  I'erreur  proviennent  ici  de  I'idee 
etrange  qu'on  se  fait  de  I'eglise  et  de  sa  constitution. 
L'eglise,  pense-t-on,  n'est  qu'  une  societe  ordinaire,  une 
classe  d'hommes  soumis  comme  les  autres,  au  controle 
de  I'etat.  La  societe  civile  entraine  cette  classe  dans 
le  cercle  de  ses  attributions  comme  le  soleil  entraine,  dans 
son  orbite,  une  planete  de  second  ordre.  L'etat  ab- 
sorbe  tous  les  services ;  de  lui  decoulent  toutes  les  fonc- 
tions,  toutes  les  lois,  toutes  les  grandeurs.  Cette  cen- 
tralization est  le  fruit  du  progres  moderne. 
N'est  ce  pas  plutot  la  glorification  de  la  matiere.'*  une 
monstrueuse  apotheose  de  la  force?  la  resurrection  du 
cesarisme  paien?  Dans  tous  les  cas,  c'est  une  concep- 
tion fausse,  absurde,  de  la  nature  de  I'eglise  et  de  son 
role  surnaturel  dans  le  monde;  c'est  un  melange  batard 
des  traditions  paiennes  et  des  conceptions  heretiques 
qui  consacrent,  meme  dans  I'ordre  religieux,  la  supre- 
matie  de  I'etat. 

"Non,  I'eglise  dans  sa  sphere  propre,  ne  depend  pas 
de  vous ;  non  I'eglise  n'est  pas  une  subalterne  ou  une 
infirme  qui  a  besoin  de  votre  pouvoir  pour  s'ouvrir  la 
scene  du  monde.  Le  monde  entier  lui  appartient. 
Dieu  I'a  chargee  de  le  diriger,  de  le  redresser  et  de  le 
maintenir  sous  sa  loi.  Quand  I'eglise  remplit  ce  de- 
voir, elle  n'usurpe  personne;  elle  ne  fait  qu'  user  du 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  25 

pouvoir  qu'elle  a  re9u  de  Dieu.  Euntes,  docete,  man- 
dantes  servare  omnia.  A  I'eglise  soit  tout  ce  qui  est 
de  I'eglise."      (p.  174  ff.) 

James  Bryce,  British  ambassador  to  the 
United  States,  gives  us  in  his  famous  discussion, 
"The  American  Commonwealth,"  such  a  saga- 
cious and  careful  description  of  the  Church  and 
State  in  America,  that  it  seems  well  to  conclude 
with  his  impartial  observations. 

"  'The  abstention  of  the  state  from  interference  in 
matters  of  faith  and  worship  may  be  advocated  on  two 
principles,  which  may  be  called  the  political  and  the 
religious.  The  former  sets  out  from  the  principles 
of  liberty  and  equality.  It  holds  any  attempt  at  com- 
pulsion by  the  civil  power  to  be  an  infringement  on 
liberty  and  thought,  as  well  as  on  liberty  of  action, 
which  could  be  justified  only  when  a  practice  claiming 
to  be  religious  is  so  obviously  anti-social  or  immoral  as 
to  threaten  the  well-being  of  the  community.  Re- 
ligious persecution,  even  in  its  milder  forms,  such  as 
disqualifying  the  members  of  a  particular  sect  for 
public  office,  is,  it  conceives,  inconsistent  with  the  con- 
ception of  individual  freedom  and  the  respect  due  to 
the  primordial  rights  of  the  citizen  which  modern 
thought  has  embraced.  Even  if  state  action  stops 
short  of  the  imposition  of  disabilities,  and  confines  itself 
to  favoring  a  particular  church,  whether  by  grants  of 
money  or  by  giving  special  immunities  to  its  clergy, 
this  is  an  infringement  on  equality,'  putting  one  man 


26  AUTHORITY 

at  a  disadvantage  compared  with  others  in  respect  of 
matters  which  are  not  fit  subjects  for  state  cognizance. 
(The  question  of  course  follows,  what  are  the  matters 
fit  for  state  cognizance?  but  into  this  I  do  not  enter, 
as  I  am  not  attempting  to  argue  these  intricate  ques- 
tions, but  merely  to  indicate  the  general  aspect  they 
take  in  current  discussion.) 

"The  second  principle,  embodying  the  more  purely 
religious  view  of  the  question,  starts  from  the  conception 
of  the  church  as  a  spiritual  body  existing  for  spiritual 
purposes,  and  moving  along  spiritual  paths.  It  is  an 
assemblage  of  men  who  are  united  by  their  devotion  to 
an  unseen  Being,  their  memory  of  a  past  divine  life, 
their  belief  in  the  possibility  of  imitating  that  life,  so 
far  as  human  frailty  allows,  their  hopes  for  an  illimita- 
ble future.  Compulsion  of  any  kind  is  contrary  to  the 
nature  of  such  a  body,  which  lives  by  love  and  rever- 
ence, not  by  law.  It  desires  no  state  help,  feeling  that 
its  strength  comes  from  above,  and  that  its  kingdom 
it  not  of  this  world.  It  does  not  seek  for  exclusive 
privileges,  conceiving  that  these  would  not  only  create 
bitterness  between  itself  and  other  religious  bodies,  but 
might  attract  persons  who  did  not  really  share  its 
sentiments,  while  corrupting  the  simplicity  of  those  who 
are  already  its  members.  Least  of  all  can  it  submit 
to  be  controlled  by  the  state,  for  the  state,  in  such  a 
world  as  the  present,  means  persons  many  or  most  of 
whom  are  alien  to  its  beliefs  and  cold  to  its  emotions. 
The  conclusion  follows  that  the  church  as  a  spiritual 
entity  will  be  happiest  and  strongest  when  it  is  left 
absolutely  to  itself,  not  patronized  by  the  civil  power, 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  27 

not  restrained  by  law  except  when  and  in  so  far  as  it 
may  attempt  to  quit  its  proper  sphere  and  intermeddle 
in  secular  affairs. 

"Of  these  two  views  it  is  the  former  much  more  than 
the  latter  that  has  moved  the  American  mind.  The 
latter  would  doubtless  be  more  generally  accepted  by 
religious  people.  But  when  the  question  arose  in  a 
practical  shape  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  Republic, 
arguments  of  the  former  or  political  order  were  found 
amply  sufficient  to  settle  it,  and  no  practical  purpose 
has  since  then  compelled  men  either  to  examine  the 
spiritual  basis  of  the  church,  or  to  inspire  by  the  light 
of  history  how  far  state  action  has  during  fifteen  cen- 
turies helped  or  marred  her  usefulness.  There  has, 
however,  been  another  cause  at  work,  I  mean  the  com- 
paratively limited  conception  of  the  state  itself  which 
Americans  have  formed.  The  state  is  not  to  them,  as 
to  Germans  or  Frenchmen,  and  even  to  some  English 
thinkers,  an  ideal  moral  power,  charged  with  the  duty 
of  forming  the  characters  and  guiding  the  lives  of  its 
subjects.  It  is  more  like  a  commercial  company,  or 
perhaps  a  huge  municipality  created  for  the  manage- 
ment of  certain  business  in  which  all  who  reside  within 
its  bounds  are  interested,  levying  contributions  and  ex- 
pending them  on  this  business  of  common  interest,  but 
for  the  most  part  leaving  the  shareholders  or  burgesses 
to  themselves.  That  an  organization  of  this  kind 
should  trouble  itself,  otherwise  than  as  matters  of  po- 
lice, with  the  opinions  or  conduct  of  its  members  would 
be  as  unnatural  as  for  a  railway  company  to  inquire 
how  many  of  the  shareholders  were  total  abstainers. 


28  AUTHORITY 

Accordingly  it  never  occurs  to  the  average  American 
that  there  is  any  reason  why  state  churches  should  ex- 
ist, and  he  stands  amazed  at  the  warmth  of  European 
feeling  on  the  matter.  Just  because  these  questions 
have  been  long  since  disposed  of,  and  excite  no  present 
passion,  and  perhaps  also  because  the  Americans  are 
more  practically  easy-going  than  pedantically  exact, 
the  National  government  and  the  State  governments 
do  give  to  Christianity  a  species  of  recognition  incon- 
sistent with  the  view  that  civil  government  should  be 
absolutely  neutral  in  religious  matters.  Each  House 
of  Congress  has  a  chaplain,  and  opens  its  proceedings 
each  day  with  prayers.  The  President  annually  after 
the  end  of  harvest  issues  a  proclamation  ordering  a 
general  thanksgiving,  and  occasionally  appoints  a  day 
of  fasting  and  humiliation.  So  prayers  are  offered  in 
the  State  legislatures  (though  Michigan  and  Oregon 
forbid  any  appropriation  of  State  funds  for  days  of 
religious  observance).  Congress  in  the  crisis  of  the 
Civil  War  (July,  1863)  requested  the  President  to  ap- 
point a  day  for  humiliation  and  prayer.  In  the  army 
and  navy  provision  is  made  for  religious  services,  con- 
ducted by  chaplains  of  various  denominations,  and  no 
difficulty  seems  to  have  been  found  in  reconciling  their 
claims.  In  most  States  there  exist  laws  punishing 
blasphemy  or  profane  swearing  by  the  name  of  God 
(laws  which,  however,  are  in  some  places  openly  trans- 
gressed and  in  few  or  none  enforced,  laws  restricting 
or  forbidding  trade  or  labor  on  the  Sabbath,  as  well 
as  laws  protecting  assemblages  for  religious  purposes, 
such   as   camp-meetings   or  religious   processions,   from 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  29 

being  disturbed.  The  Bible  is  read  in  the  public  State- 
supported  schools,  and  though  controversies  have  arisen 
on  this  head,  the  practice  is  evidently  in  accord  with 
the  general  sentiment  of  the  people.  The  whole  mat- 
ter may,  I  think,  be  summed  up  by  saying  that  Chris- 
tianity is  in  fact  understood  to  be,  though  not  the 
legally  established  religion,  yet  the  national  religion. 
(It  has  often  been  said  that  Christianity  is  a  part  of 
the  common  law  of  the  States,  as  it  has  been  said  to 
be  of  the  common  law  of  England,  but  on  this  point 
there  have  been  discrepant  judicial  opinions,  nor  can  it 
be  said  to  find  any  specific  practical  application.  A 
discussion  of  it  may  be  found  in  Justice  Story's  opinion 
in  the  famous  Girard  will  case.)  So  far  from  think- 
ing their  commonwealth  godless,  the  Americans  con- 
ceive that  the  religious  character  of  a  government  con- 
sists in  nothing  but  the  religious  belief  of  the  indi- 
vidual citizens,  and  the  conformity  of  their  conduct 
to  that  belief.  They  deem  the  general  acceptance  of 
Christianity  to  be  one  of  the  main  sources  of  their  nat- 
ural prosperity,  and  their  nation  a  special  object  of 
the  Divine  favor. 

"The  legal  position  of  a  Christian  church  is  in  the 
United  States  simply  that  of  a  voluntary  association, 
or  group  of  associations,  corporate  or  unincorporate, 
under  the  ordinary  law.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
special  ecclesiastical  law;  all  questions,  not  only  of 
property  but  of  church  discipline  and  jurisdiction,  are, 
if  brought  before  the  courts  of  the  land,  dealt  with  as 
questions  of  contract  (or  otherwise  as  questions  of  pri- 
vate  civil   law.     Actions    for   damages    are   sometimes 


30  AUTHORITY 

brought  against  ecclesiastical  authorities  by  persons 
deeming  themselves  to  have  been  improperly  accused  or 
disciplined  or  deprived  of  the  enjoyment  of  property). 
And  the  court,  where  it  is  obliged  to  examine  a  ques- 
tion of  theology,  as  for  instance,  whether  a  clergyman 
had  advanced  opinions  inconsistent  with  any  creed  or 
formula  to  which  he  has  bound  himself — for  it  will  pre- 
fer, if  possible,  to  leave  such  matters  to  the  proper  ec- 
clesiastical authority — will  treat  the  point  as  one  of 
pure  legal  interpretation,  neither  assuming  to  itself 
theological  knowledge,  nor  suffering  considerations  of 
policy  to  intervene.  (The  Emperor  Aurelian  decided 
in  a  like  neutral  spirit  a  question  that  had  arisen  be- 
tween two  Christian  churches.) 

"As  a  rule,  every  religious  body  can  organize  itself 
in  any  way  it  pleases.  The  State  does  not  require  its 
leave  to  be  asked,  but  permits  any  form  of  church  gov- 
ernment, any  ecclesiastical  order,  to  be  created  and  en- 
dowed, any  method  to  be  adopted  of  vesting  church 
property,  either  simply  in  trustees  or  in  corporate 
bodies  formed  either  under  the  general  law  of  the  State 
or  under  some  special  statute.  Sometimes  a  limit  is 
imposed  on  the  amount  of  property,  or  of  real  estate, 
which  an  ecclesiastical  corporation  can  hold;  but,  on 
the  whole,  it  may  be  said  that  the  civil  power  manifests 
no  jealousy  of  the  spiritual,  but  allows  the  latter  a 
perfectly  free  field  for  expansion.  Of  course  if  any 
ecclesiastical  authority  were  to  become  formidable 
either  by  its  wealth  or  by  its  control  over  the  members 
of  its  body,  this  easy  tolerance  would  disappear ;  all  I 
observe   is   that  the  difficulties   often   experienced,   and 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  81 

still  more  often  feared,  in  Europe,  from  the  growth  of 
organizations  exercising  tremendous  spiritual  powers, 
have  in  America  never  proved  serious.  Religious 
bodies  are  in  so  far  the  objects  of  special  favor  that 
their  property  is  in  most  States  exempt  from  taxation. 
(In  his  message  of  1881  the  Governor  of  Washington 
Territory  recommends  the  legislature  to  exempt  church 
property  from  taxation,  not  only  on  the  ground  that 
'churches  and  schoolhouses  are  the  temples  of  educa- 
tion, and  alike  conduce  to  the  cultivation  of  peace,  hap- 
piness and  prosperity,'  but  also  because  'churches 
enhance  the  value  of  contiguous  property,  which,  were 
they  abolished,  would  be  of  less  value  and  return  less 
revenue.'  And  this  is  reconciled  to  theory  by  argu- 
ment that  they  are  serviceable  as  moral  agencies,  and 
diminish  the  expenses  incurred  in  respect  of  police 
administration.  Two  or  three  States  impose  restric- 
tions on  the  creation  of  religious  corporations,  and  one, 
Maryland,  requires  the  sanction  of  the  legislature  to 
dispositions  of  property  to  religious  uses.  But  speak- 
ing generally,  religious  bodies  are  the  objects  of  legis- 
lative favor.  (New  Hampshire  has  lately  taxed 
churches  on  the  value  of  their  real  estate  exceeding  ten 
thousand   dollars.)"     (Second  Volume,   pp.   647-652.) 

The  struggle  for  authority  between  secular 
and  ecclesiastical  power  has  found  its  classic  ex- 
pression in  the  rivalry  of  Emperor  Henry  IV 
and  Pope  Gregory  VII  for  supremacy  in  earthly 
matters.  The  great  success  of  von  Wilden- 
bruch's  work,  "Heinrich  und  Heinrich's  Gesch- 


32  AUTHORITY 

lecht,"  may  be  accounted  for  largely,  apart  from 
its  merits,  by  the  interest  felt  in  the  theme.  The 
Germans  of  our  day  went  through  a  renewal  of 
the  same  struggle  in  the  Kulturkainpf  with  Bis- 
marck and  Windhorst  as  respective  champions. 
Bismarck's  words  in  the  Reichstag,  "Nach  Ca- 
nossa  gehn  wir  nicht,"  are  characteristic. 

The  present  illustrious  ruler  has  reconciled 
considerably  this  conflict,  recognizing  that  Ro- 
man Catholicism  should  be  judged  more  desir- 
able than  the  secularizing  tendencies  which  (as 
illustrated  most  plainly  in  France,  though  other 
nations  show  the  same  trend)  exemplify  an 
atheistic  and  revolutionary  spirit  under  the  dis- 
guise of  culture  and  progress.  That  with  the 
Emperor  this  does  not  mean  a  special  indulgence 
towards  papal  policy,  however,  is  shown  by  a 
very  recent  warning  to  the  Vatican  by  Chancel- 
lor von  Bethmann-HoUweg,  admonishing  the 
Curia  of  issuing  various  decrees  without  that  con- 
sideration for  German  conditions  which  was  in- 
dispensable in  maintaining  a  friendly  status. 
The  Kaiser  said  on  the  occasion  of  the  inspection 
of  a  crucifix  which  he  had  presented  to  the  Bene- 
dictine monastery  at  Beuron: 

"I  offer  you  my  heartfelt  thanks  for  the  kind  words 
with  which  you  have  received  me,  and  am  glad  to  have 
the  opportunity  of  paying  you  a  visit  and  expressing 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  33 

to  you  my  sincere  good-will.  From  the  beginning  of 
my  reign  it  was  a  particular  pleasure  to  me  to  support 
the  Benedictines  in  their  efforts,  since  I  had  noticed 
that  wherever  they  had  worked  they  had  not  only  en- 
deavored to  maintain  and  strengthen  religion,  but  had 
also  distinguished  themselves  as  promoters  of  culture 
in  the  field  of  church-music,  in  art,  in  science  and  in 
other  ways,  thus  rendering  services  which  should  not 
be  under-estimated.  What  I  expect  from  you  is  that 
you  will  continue  working  in  the  paths  of  your  fore- 
fathers and  support  me  in  my  efforts  to  maintain  the 
people's  religion.  This  is  all  the  more  important  be- 
cause the  twentieth  century  has  liberated  ideas  which 
can  only  be  successfully  combated  with  the  aid  of  re- 
ligion and  the  support  of  Heaven.  This  is  my  firm 
conviction.  The  crown  which  I  wear  can  only  guaran- 
tee success  here  if  it  is  based  on  the  word  and  person- 
ality of  our  Lord.  As  a  symbol  of  this  I  have  pre- 
sented the  crucifix  to  this  church  in  order,  as  I  said  in 
my  letter,  to  prove  that  the  governments  of  the  Chris- 
tian princes  can  only  be  carried  on  in  the  spirit  of  our 
Lord,  and  that  they  shall  help  to  strengthen  the  reli- 
gious feeling  which  is  innate  in  the  Germanic  races,  and 
increase  respect  for  altar  and  throne.  Both  these  go 
together,  and  must  not  be  separated.  Therefore  I  pro- 
mote with  my  whole  heart  the  aims  which  you  are  pur- 
suing, and  in  the  future  as  in  the  past,  will  grant  you 
my  favor  and  my  protection." 

It  might  be  observed  in  this  connection  that  by 
an  alliance  with  the  Catholics  the  gifted  Dutch 


34  AUTHORITY 

Premier,  Abraham  Kuyper,  combated  success- 
fully and  finally  overthrew  the  liberal  regime, 
which  for  over  half  a  century  exercised  its 
baneful  influence  in  the  Netherlands. 

Gregory's  letter,  sent  in  1075,  upbraiding 
Henry  for  neglect  of  papal  decrees,  was  headed : 
"Bishop  Gregory,  servant  of  the  servants  of 
God,  to  King  Henry,  greeting  and  apostolic  ben- 
ediction:— that  is,  if  he  be  obedient  to  the  apos- 
tolic chair  as  beseems  a  Christian  king.  "To  this, 
Henry  replied  the  next  year  by  a  letter,  begin- 
ning, "Henry,  King  not  by  usurpation  but  by 
holy  ordination  of  God,  to  Hildebrand,  now  no 
pope,  but  false  monk,"  and  ending:  "I,  Henry, 
King  by  the  grace  of  God,  together  with  all  our 
bishops,  say  unto  thee,  'Come  down  to  be 
damned  throughout  all  eternity.' "  Later, 
when  in  1107  at  Chalons  the  questions  of  investi- 
ture were  discussed,  the  Pope  declared  by  the 
Bishop  of  Piacenza:  "To  invest  with  the  ring 
and  the  staff,  since  these  belong  to  the  altar,  is 
to  usurp  the  powers  of  God  Himself.  For  a 
priest  to  place  his  hands,  sanctified  by  the  body 
and  blood  of  the  Lord,  in  the  blood-stained 
hands  of  a  layman,  as  a  pledge,  is  to  dishonor  his 
order  and  holy  consecration."  It  has  often  been 
observed  that  this  quarrel  occasioned  the  phrase 
"by  the  grace  of  God"  to  be  attached  to  the  proc- 
lamation of  rulers.     So  it  did,  but  it  is  a  super- 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  85 

ficial  inference  to  argue  that  with  the  phrase  was 
originated  the  belief  or  meaning  which  it  ex- 
presses. The  struggle  was  too  keen,  too  passion- 
ate, to  have  sprung  out  of  a  newly  invented  be- 
lief, to  which  the  phrase  might  have  given  rise. 
When  Germany's  gifted  monarch,  William 
the  Great,  voiced  this  deep  religious  conviction 
in  his  Konigsberg  speech,  liberahsm  and  radical 
elements  misconstrued  and  misrepresented  his 
words  in  a  wholly  unwarranted  agitation.  The 
Emperor  said:  "My  grandfather  by  his  own 
right  placed  the  Prussian  crown  upon  his  head 
and  again  proclaimed  it  to  be  bestowed  upon 
him  by  God's  grace  alone  and  not  by  Parlia- 
ments, assemblages  of  the  people,  or  revolutions 
of  the  people,  and  he  saw  himself  the  chosen  in- 
strument of  heaven,  and  as  such  regarded  his  duty 
as  regent  and  ruler.  Considering  myself  as  the 
instrument  of  the  Master,  regardless  of  passing 
views  and  opinions,  I  go  my  way,  which  is  solely 
devoted  to  the  prosperity  and  peaceful  develop- 
ment of  our  Fatherland."  In  the  same  hall  the 
Kaiser  said  in  May,  1890:  "We  Hohenzollerns 
take  our  crown  from  heaven  alone;  and  in  1894 
William  II,  quoting  the  words  of  his  grand- 
father William  I,  about  ruling  by  divine  right, 
added:  "So,  too,  do  I  take  my  kingdom  by  God's 
grace."  To  construe  this  utterance  of  "divine 
right"  as  a  declaration  of  absolutism  and  under- 


36  AUTHORITY 

estimation  of  the  people  and  the  people's  repre- 
sentatives is  a  flimsy  and  paltry  pretext  indeed! 
for  those  sowing  the  discontent  on  which  social- 
ism feeds. 

What  His  Majesty  proclaimed  and  has  made 
actual  in  his  conduct  as  ruler  is  simply,  that  his 
sense  of  duty  rests  on  religious  grounds.  As 
Hegel  dignified  the  laws  of  the  land  by  conceiv- 
ing the  sovereignty  of  the  state  as  vested  with 
the  authority  of  the  Absolute  Idea,  so  Emperor 
William  feels  in  it  the  sanction  and  expression  of 
God.  The  German  agitators  should  remember 
that  in  spite  of  this  alleged  "divine  right"  by 
which  the  Kaiser  claims  to  rule,  the  Emperor  in- 
deed adheres  to  the  same  attitude  which  Prince 
von  Buelow  expressed  in  the  Reichstag  July  20, 
1908:  "Not  a  single  case  can  be  adduced  where 
the  Kaiser  has  placed  himself  in  opposition  to 
the  constitution."  In  many  a  republic  without 
attempt  at,  or  sentiment  of  justification  in  Divine 
authority,  constitutional  or  popular  rights  have 
often  been  disregarded.  In  fact,  only  a  firm  re- 
liance on  supreme  authority  and  right  guaran- 
tees the  right  of  the  nation,  and  is  capable 
of  vindicating  it.  Consider  for  a  moment 
the  superficial,  harmful  and  impious  no- 
tions of  a  journalist-preacher  on  "The  Spirit  of 
Democracy"  and  you  will  doubtlessly  recognize 
the  superiority  of  the  man — be  he  ruler  or  offi- 


CHURCH  AND  STATE  37 

cial — who  feels  himself  responsible  in  his  con- 
science to  God  over  him  whose  horizon  limits  it- 
self to  an  outlook  upon  the  crowd  of  voters. 
Such  a  viewpoint,  however,  is  maintained  by 
Lyman  Abbot  in  the  "Outlook": 

"The  state  of  nature  is  the  ideal  state;  let  us  go 
back  to  it.  In  a  state  of  nature  every  man  is  free  to 
live  his  own  life,  direct  his  own  energies,  carve  out  his 
own  destiny.  Every  impediment  upon  this  freedom  is 
an  injury  to  humanity.  All  government  is  such  an 
impediment.  A  little  government  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  protect  the  weak  from  the  strong,  but  govern- 
ment is  a  necessary  evil,  and  the  less  we  have  of  it  the 
better.  Humanity  has  simply  consented  to  it  in  order 
to  protect  itself.  It  should  constrain  only  to  free  from 
constraint.  On  this  consent  of  the  governed  govern- 
ment is  founded.  This  is  the  basis  of  all  authority. 
The  ultimate  appeal  is  to  the  people ;  for  the  voice  of 
the  people  is  the  voice  of  God — that  is,  if  there  is  a  God. 
Whether  there  be  one  or  not  it  is  not  material  to  in- 
quire; for  the  voice  of  the  people  is  final.  A  just  gov- 
ernment is  a  government  carried  on  in  accordance  with 
the  will  of  the  majority;  an  unjust  government  is  one 
carried  on  not  in  accordance  with  that  will." 


CHAPTER  III 

MORAL  AUTHORITY 

When  the  objective  norm,  the  legal  code,  con- 
ventional morality  and  new  religious  formulas 
are  framed  in  keeping  with  the  changes  of  con- 
temporary opinion,  they  become  liable  to  error, 
and  must  be  subject  to  subsequent  correction. 
Thus  they  cannot  well  claim  the  confident  sub- 
mission of  the  individual  as  possessing  rightful 
or  reasonable  authority.  Yet  the  tendency  to- 
day is  to  regard  the  sanction  of  society  as  final, 
both  in  ethics  and  in  religion.  Both  morality 
and  religion  are  becoming  more  and  more  con- 
ventional. In  this  the  extreme  conclusions  of 
sociological  theories  run  into  a  pantheistic  phi- 
losophy that  does  not  allow  of  an  "otherness"  in 
the  verdict,  to  which,  however,  consciousness  un- 
mistakably testifies,  and  which  thus  destroys  an 
objective  sanction.  Martineau  describes  in  his 
"Types  of  Ethical  Theory"  eloquently  this  au- 
thority and  sanction  of  conscience : 

"Conscience  speaks  with  authority.  The  authority 
is  a  simple  feeling,  admitting  of  little  analysis  or  ex- 
planation.    But  it  is  not  simply  subjective,  not  of  my 

38 


MORAL  AUTHORITY  39 

own  making,  not  a  mere  self-assertion  of  my  own  will 
to  which  my  own  will  is  the  first  to  bend  in  homage. 
The  authority  which  reveals  itself  within  us  reports 
itself,  not  only  as  underived  from  our  will,  but  as  in- 
dependent of  our  idiosyncrasies  altogether.  If  the 
sense  of  authority  means  anything,  it  means  the  dis- 
cernment of  something  higher  than  we,  no  mere  part 
of  ourself,  but  transcending  our  personality.  It  is 
more  than  part  and  parcel  of  myself,  it  is  communion 
of  God's  life  and  guiding  love  entering  and  abiding 
with  an  apprehensive  capacity  in  myself.  Here  we 
encounter  an  objective  authority  without  quitting  our 
own  center  of  consciousness.  A  man  is  a  law  unto 
himself,  not  by  autonomy  of  the  individual,  but  by  self- 
communication  of  the  Infinite  Spirit  to  the  soul  and  the 
law  itself,  the  idea  of  an  absolute  'should  be'  is  au- 
thoritative with  conscience,  because  it  is  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  eternal  perfection  to  a  mind  that  has  to 
grow  and  is  imposed,  therefore,  by  the  Infinite  upon 
the  finite." 

Professor  Ladd  truly  remarks,  in  his  "Theory 
of  Reality":  "Man's  conception  of  Reality  must 
be  derived  from  his  cognitive  experience  with 
concrete  realities — subjected  to  reflection." 
And  again:  "Cognitive  experience  with  concrete 
things  contains  at  its  roots,  if  anywhere  it  is  to 
be  found,  the  beginnings  to  a  true  answer  of  the 
metaphysical  problem."  In  the  face  of  the 
"personal  equation,"  the  saying  that  there  is  no 
greater  tyranny  than  an  equality  forced  upon 


40  AUTHORITY 

those  who  are  not  equal,  is  perfectly  true.  Mon- 
taigne in  the  time  of  the  "discovery  of  man" 
spoke  the  pregnant  words:  "Everyone  must  have 
'an  inner  touchstone'  (un  patron  au  dedans)  by 
which  to  judge  his  actions."  Fouillee  rightly 
remarks  in  his  "Psychologic  des  peuples  euro- 
peens":  "M.  Guyau  and  M.  Tarde  have  strongly 
insisted  that  we  are  under  the  dominion  of  con- 
tinual suggestion,  coming  from  the  environment 
in  which  we  live.  .  .  .  We  disagree  with 
those  who  reduce  the  whole  of  sociolog}^  to  a 
study  of  these  forms,  and  we  believe  that  the 
study  of  its  psychological  foundation  is  essential 
to  sociology."  Dr.  Philip  Fogel  brought  out  in 
an  able  essay  in  the  American  Journal  of  Soci- 
ology the  metaphysical  element  involved  in  soci- 
ology, which  is  ignored  by  Professor  Giddings. 
Durkheim  makes  of  man  driftwood  on  the 
eddying  tides  of  the  social  currents.  He  says  in 
"Les  regies  de  la  methode  sociologique" : 

"Not  only  are  these  types  of  conduct  or  of  thought 
external  to  the  individual,  but  they  are  endowed  with 
commanding  and  compelling  force  in  virtue  of  which 
they  lay  hold  of  him  whether  he  wishes  it  or  not." 
("Non  seulement  ces  types  de  conduite  ou  de  pensee 
sont  exterieurs  a  I'individu,  mais  ils  sont  doues  d'une 
puissance  imperative  et  coercive  en  vertu  de  laquelle  ils 
s'imposent  a  lui,  qu'il  le  veuille  on  non.") 


MORAL  AUTHORITY  41 

This  view  results  from  the  advocacy  of  social 
forms  as  the  prime  influence  in  life,  thus  laying 
the  basis  of  moral  life  with  its  norms  and  sanc- 
tions outside  of  itself,  although  logically  even 
these  sanctions  are  rendered  superfluous  with 
Durkheim.  It  is  natural  that  in  France  this 
school  counts  many  followers,  especially  since 
France  is  in  some  sense  "la  nation  la  plus  so- 
cialisee,  ou  les  elements  sociaux  ont  fini  par 
dominer  le  plus  les  elements  ethniques  et  meme 
psychiques"  (the  most  socialized  nation  where  the 
social  elements  dominate  in  the  highest  degree 
the  ethnic  and  even  the  psychic  factors).  The 
German  conception  remains  less  bare,  even  when 
irreligious,  as  Sudermann  expresses  this  view  in 
Der  Katzensteg: 

"Es  ist  gut,  dass  in  diesem  Chaos,  wo  Gut  und  Bose, 
Recht  and  Unrecht,  Ehre  und  Schmach  wirr  durchei- 
mander  taumeln,  und  wo  selbst  der  alte  Gott  im  Himmel 
dahinschwindet,  ein  fester  Pol  uns  iibrig  bleibt,  um  den 
sich  alles  aufs  neue  ordnen  rausz,  ein  Fels,  an  den  wir 
Ertrinkenden  uns  klammern  konnen,  und  an  dem  es  zu 
scheitem  selbst  noch  Wollust  ist — das  Vaterland !" 

After  the  materialistic  movement  in  the 
"Naturforschersammlung"  of  1854  had  excluded 
spiritual  factors  from  its  interpretations,  the 
need  of  subjective  reference  announced  itself 
again  in  the  cry;  "Back  to  Kant."     After  the 


42  AUTHORITY 

excesses  of  the  left-wing  Hegelians,  carrying  the 
master's  panlogism  into  materialistic  channels, 
the  individual  soul  claimed  attention  once  more. 
The  views  in  literature  corresponding  to  those  of 
the  naturalistic  school,  broke  down,  because,  as 
the  literary  critic  Rene  Doumic  expresses  it: 
"People  have  come  to  recognize  that  man  has  a 
soul"  (On  s'est  avise  qu'  on  a  une  ame).  Au- 
gustine's strong  affirmation  that  the  home  of 
truth  is  in  man,  thus  finds  its  recognition. 

We  shall  now  consider  the  "subjective  refer- 
ence" or  "personal  element"  in  the  ethical  and  re- 
ligious formulations,  not  as  opposing  them  to 
these  formulations,  but  with  a  view  to  ascertain- 
ing the  better  their  individual  bearings  on  legal- 
ism in  ethics  and  religion,  remembering  Goethe's 
words : 

"Gern  war'  ich  Ueberliefrung  los 
Und  ganz  original; 
Doch  ist  das  Untemehmen  gross 
Und  fiihrt  in  manche  Qual. 
Als  Autochthone  rechnet'  ich 
Es  mir  zur  hochsten  Ehre 
Wenn  ich  nicht  gar  zu  wunderlich 
Selbst  Ueberliefrung  ware." 

and  those  other,  not  less  important, 

"Was  du  ererbt  von  deinen  Vatern  hast 
Erwirb  es,  um  es  zu  besitzen !" 


MORAL  AUTHORITY  43 

In  spite  of  the  common  elements  in  environ- 
ment and  the  kinship  of  human  personality,  no 
two  hmnan  lives  could  ever  express  each  other's 
individual  experiences  and  views.  Even  if  the 
surroundings  were  entirely  the  same,  the  reacting 
individuals  would  be  different.  Pantheistic  sys- 
tems make  a  fundamentally  false  step  in  slight- 
ing this  fact  of  the  uniqueness  of  each  human 
personality.  This  results  from  the  assumption 
that  personality  is  in  itself  what  it  is  for  others. 
This  approach  from  without,  however,  will  never 
yield  the  essential  meaning  of  personality.  The 
own  knowledge  of  each  self  is  never  quite  the 
same  as  the  most  exhaustive  knowledge  about 
oneself.  Pantheism  proceeds  on  the  assumption 
that  feeHng  and  will  can  be  left  out  of  account. 
But  even  on  the  basis  of  thought  alone,  two  in- 
dividual consciousnesses  could  never  overlap 
completely.  Mr.  Hastings  Rashdall  makes  a 
pointed  criticism  of  Professor  Royce's  "The 
World  and  the  Individual,"  in  an  article  entitled, 
"Personality:  Human  and  Divine."  He  says: 
—  (Personal  Idealism,  p.  382  footnote)  : 

"It  is  admitted  that  two  such  spirits  might  have 
like  but  not  identical  experiences  (i.e.,  experience  in 
which  there  was  some  identity  but  some  difference)  with- 
out ceasing  to  be  two.  Let  us  suppose  the  content  of 
the   consciousness   of  each   to   become   gradually   more 


44  AUTHORITY 

and  more  like  that  of  the  other,  including  all  the  time 
the  knowledge  of  the  other's  existence.  Can  it  be  seri- 
ously contended  that  as  the  last  remaining  difference 
disappeared,  that  consciousness  in  A  of  not  being  B 
would  suddenly  disappear  too?  Of  course  it  may  be 
said  that  the  consciousness  of  not  being  B  is  part  of 
the  content  of  A's  consciousness.  If  so,  of  course, 
the  case  supposed  could  not  possibly  arise,  and  the 
difficulty  disappears.  But  still  the  difference  between 
A  and  B  would  be  absolutely  unrecognizable  and  in- 
describable for  any  other  consciousness,  although  such 
a  consciousness  might  know  there  were  two  beings  with 
such  contents  of  consciousness  identical  but  for  the 
knowledge  by  each  that  he  was  not  the  other." 

Alice  in  Wonderland  may  instruct  us  with  her 
questioning: 

"If  I'm  not  the  same,  the  next  question  is,  who  in  the 
world  am  I?  Ah,  that's  the  great  puzzle!  I'm  sure 
I'm  not  Ada,  for  her  hair  goes  in  such  long  ringlets, 
and  mine  doesn't  go  in  ringlets  at  all ;  and  I  am  sure 
I  can't  be  Mable,  for  I  know  all  sorts  of  things,  and 
she,  oh !  she  knows  such  a  very  little !  Besides,  she's 
she,  and  I'm  I,  and — oh  dear,  how  puzzling  it  all  is !" 

James  describes  this  as  follows:  "That  un- 
sharable  feeling  which  one  has  of  the  pinch  of  his 
individual  destiny  as  he  privately  feels  it  rolling 
out  on  fortune's  wheel  may  be  disparaged  for  its 
egotism,  may  be  sneered  at  as  unscientific,  but  it 


MORAL  AUTHORITY  45 

is  the  one  thing  that  fills  up  the  measure  of  our 
concrete  actuality.  The  axis  of  reality  runs 
solely  through  the  egotistic  places — they  are 
strung  upon  it  as  so  many  beads."  He  declares 
that  "the  altogether  unique  kind  of  interest  which 
each  human  mind  feels  in  those  parts  of  crea- 
tion which  it  can  call  me  or  mine  may  be  a  moral 
riddle,  but  it  is  a  psychological  fact."  It  is  ex- 
actly this  individual  factor  all  its  own,  which 
cannot  be  wholly  described  because  of  its  unique- 
ness, but  leaves  a  residuum  that  constitutes  the 
disturbing  element  which  battles  with  the  regu- 
larity of  law.  All  the  more  is  this  true  since 
with  this  factor  hes  the  issue  of  obedience  to,  and 
maintenance  of,  the  law  in  society.  Each  per- 
son's gaze  is  fixed  upon  a  particular  bit  of 
reality,  directly  observed  in  his  own  way.  There 
is  not  merely  a  barrier  around  the  individual 
soul-life  preventing  his  fellow-creatures  from 
observing  this  inner  life;  but  intrinsically,  from 
the  nature  of  the  case,  no  outsider  can  enter  into 
the  business  transactions  of  the  individual  self. 
There  is  something  of  awfulness  about  the 
thought  of  the  lonely  pursuit  of  each  individu- 
ality, facing  the  issue  of  life  singly,  seeing 
through  one's  own  eyes,  and  accepting  the  re- 
sponsibility for  its  own  life.  Indeed  if  life  is 
our  own  in  the  last  instance,  we  cannot  live  it  by 
proxy,  cannot  resolve  it  into  a  mere  component 


46  AUTHORITY 

part  of  social  life.  The  pinch  of  individuality  is 
with  us,  and  with  the  "I"  goes  a  conscience  which 
is  more  than  a  social  verdict.  It  is  something 
which  concerns  me  directly,  to  which  I  must 
make  a  personal  response  and  thus  incur  re- 
sponsibility. Guy  de  Maupassant  felt  this  fact 
in  a  morbid  and  painful  exaggeration,  and 
Mathew  Arnold  utters  this  weird  lament  in 
"Poems  to  Marguerite": 

"In  the  sea  of  life  enisled, 
With  echoing  straits  between  us  thrown, 
Dotting  the  shoreless  watery  wild. 
We  mortal  millions  live  alone." 

How  finely  is  this  sentiment  portrayed  by 
Dickens  in  "A  Tale  of  Two  Cities"  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  chapter  "The  Night  Shadows": 

"A  wonderful  fact  to  reflect  upon,  that  every  human 
creature  is  constituted  to  be  that  profound  secret  and 
mystery  to  every  other.  A  solemn  consideration,  when 
I  enter  a  great  city  by  night,  that  every  one  of  those 
darkly  clustered  houses  encloses  its  own  secret;  that 
every  room  in  every  one  of  them  encloses  its  own  secret ; 
that  every  beating  heart  in  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  breasts  there,  is,  in  some  of  its  imaginings,  a  secret 
to  the  heart  nearest  it !  Something  of  the  awfulness, 
even  of  Death  itself,  is  referable  to  this.  No  more  can 
I  turn  the  leaves  of  this  dear  book  that  I  loved,  and 


MORAL  AUTHORITY  47 

vainly  hope  in  time  to  read  it  all.  No  more  can  I  look 
into  the  depth  of  this  unfathomable  water,  wherein,  as 
momentary  lights  glanced  into  it,  I  have  had  glimpses 
of  buried  treasure  and  other  things  submerged.  It 
was  appointed  that  the  book  should  be  shut  with  a 
spring,  forever  and  forever,  when  I  had  but  read  a 
page.  It  was  appointed  that  the  water  should  be 
locked  in  an  eternal  frost,  when  the  light  was  playing 
on  its  surface,  and  I  stood  in  ignorance  on  the  shore. 
My  friend  is  dead,  my  neighbor  is  dead,  my  love,  the 
darling  of  my  soul,  is  dead ;  it  is  the  inexorable  con- 
solidation and  perpetuation  of  the  secret  that  was  al- 
ways in  that  individuality,  and  which  I  shall  carry 
in  mine  to  my  life's  end.  In  any  of  the  burial  places 
of  this  city  through  which  I  pass,  is  there  a  sleeper 
more  inscrutable  than  its  busy  inhabitants  are,  in  their 
innermost  personality,  to  me,  or  than  I  am  to  them.'"' 

All  the  endeavors  to  make  conscience  a  result- 
ing inner  response  to  external  environment, 
whether  in  social  interpretation,  or  legal  ex- 
planation, or  evolutionary^  analysis,  fail  to  ac- 
count for  its  authoritative,  apodictive  com- 
mands. Conscience  neither  seeks  its  authority 
from  the  things  of  the  world,  nor  endeavors  to 
justify  its  laws  by  them.  For  one  surely  does 
not  reason  one's  self  into  an  obligation  which  re- 
quires sacrifice  even  unto  death.  To  be  sure,  the 
actual  ethical  responses  are  considered  primarily, 
or  at  least  mainly,  emotional,  but  this  does  not 


48  AUTHORITY 

account  for  the  strong  sentiment  of  the  objec- 
tiveness  of  obligation,  and  sanction  of  duty  and 
ought.  But  more  than  this,  the  social  self  is 
always  transcended  by  the  ideal  self.  As  Pro- 
fessor Bald^vin  remarks : 

"The  social  influence  which  determines  the  develop- 
ment of  conscience  almost  entirely  in  its  earlier  stages 
is  itself  transcended,  in  the  rational  or  self-conscious 
organization  of  the  moral  life;  so  that  the  conscience 
becomes  not  merely  a  social  self,  but  an  ideal  self." 


CHAPTER  IV 
MORAL  OBLIGATIOX 

The  subjective  activity  in  the  assimilating  of 
the  ethical  verdicts  under  criticism  and  compari- 
son has  been  widely  discussed  in  recent  studies 
in  the  analysis  or  development  of  conscience. 
The  existence  of  heterogeneous  codes  is  no 
longer  considered  a  valid  argument  against  the 
validity  of  conscience,  since  we  find  the  authori- 
tative claim  in  the  personal  application  of  every 
form.  Although  the  individual  moral  norm  is 
one's  o\\Ti  construction  out  of  the  available  ethi- 
cal judgments  to  which  the  person  turns,  this 
standard  exercises  absolute  authority.  On  the 
validity  of  its  unconditioned  demands,  the  indi- 
vidual ^\all  stake  his  life.  "  Belief,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Baldwin,  "is  the  personal  endorsement  of 
reality."  Pascal's  dictum,  "Verite  en  de^a  des 
Pyrenees,  erreur  au  dela,"  loses  its  force  upon 
close  observation,  and  Benthan's  remark,  "Con- 
science is  a  thing  of  fictitious  existence  supposed 
to  occupy  a  seat  in  the  mind,"  results  from  the 
legal  conception  which  regulates  the  acting  ab 
ecctra. 

It  is  plain  that  there  must  be  an  inner  indica- 

49 


50  AUTHORITY 

tion  of  outer  import,  which  gives  an  authorita- 
tive dictum.  On  all  sides  we  have  primarily  the 
subjective  reference,  for  the  moral  and  religious 
life  announces  itself  as  a  private  and  individual 
concern  in  individual  experience.  The  legal 
command  "Thou  shalt"  or  "Thou  shalt  not"  is  to 
be  obeyed  only  as  responded  to  by  the  "I  ought" 
or  "I  ought  not"  of  the  individual.  The  specific 
application  of  the  right  is  left  with  the  indi- 
vidual, and  cannot  be  rigidly  controlled  by  the 
normative  and  mandatory  legal  construction  un- 
der which  the  personal  conscience  has  developed. 
Moral,  religious,  and  civil  law  are  to  be  main- 
tained, rather  than  carried  out,  because  the  ex- 
clusive uniqueness  of  the  individual  refuses  to  be 
completely  subsumed  under  law.  And  although 
Kant  proclaimed  an  erring  conscience  a  chimera, 
his  impersonal  categorical  imperative  falls  back 
on  the  concrete  experience  of  single  individuals. 
When  he  admits  that  judgment  may  err  as  to  the 
form  in  a  particular  duty,  he  lifts  conscience  out 
of  the  moral  judgment  as  such,  and  identifies  it 
with  the  ultimate  principles  of  Practical  Reason. 
This  is  the  will-form  as  carried  by  the  acting  in- 
dividual, and  requires  personal  application.  In 
our  age  of  enthusiastic  social  study,  those  who 
have  not  gone  to  the  extreme  of  lodging  author- 
ity in  ethical  and  religious  belief  in  the  "collec- 
tive consciousness"  and  its  stored-up  wisdom  of 


MORAL  OBLIGATION  51 

custom  and  tradition,  translate  the  Kantian  will 
of  Practical  Reason  into  a  social  will.  Yet,  these 
customs  admittedly  yield  a  determination  not  of 
an  absolute  and  final,  but  only  of  a  relative  kind. 
We  have  the  attempt,  therefore,  to  unite  subjec- 
tive will  with  the  impersonal  order  of  social  con- 
tent. And  this  raises  the  question  again  as  to 
the  final  decision,  or  the  seat  of  authority.  Each 
man  is  the  child  of  his  age  only  as  to  the  form  of 
his  problems.  Maurice  in  his  lecture  on  casu- 
istry calls  attention  to  the  fact  that,  in  behalf 
of  etliical  and  religious  improvement,  appeals  are 
made  to  public  opinion  to  enforce  the  claims  of 
the  individual  conscience  on  the  one  hand,  and  on 
the  other  to  the  individual  conscience  to  bear  up 
public  opinion;  showing,  thus,  that  the  point  of 
leverage  is  with  the  individual,  embodied  in  so- 
cial ethics. 

The  worth  and  authority  of  the  individual 
agent  is  assumed  to  be  derived  from,  and  sus- 
tained by,  the  community  in  the  evolutionary 
views,  though  it  is  admitted  that  "natural  selec- 
tion" has  been  overemphasized  in  its  dual  opera- 
tion with  "the  struggle  for  existence"  or  "adap- 
tation to  environment."  How  are  these  func- 
tions related?  How  does  the  struggling  indi- 
vidual find  his  place  in  this  unfinished  world,  ac- 
cording to  the  plan  of  the  whole?  Is  it  to  be 
computed,  or  is  the  world's  explanation  to  be 


52  AUTHORITY 

apprehended  only  by  faith?  Spencer's  evolu- 
tionary definition  of  conscience  as  being  "the 
control  of  the  less  evolved  feelings  by  the  more 
evolved  ones"  projects  from  without  those  princi- 
ples that  we  must  find  within.  Moreover  the 
decision  as  to  which  is  the  more  evolved  feeling 
is  to  be  made  by  this  individual,  reacting  rather 
than  acting. 

Evolution  has  been  the  watchword  of  the  "en- 
lightment"  of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  It  has  been  trumpeted  about  as  a 
neverfailing  explanation  for  any  and  all  prob- 
lems. The  much- famed  theory  is  just  now  be- 
ing modified  and  broken  down  in  the  biological 
field  from  which  it  boldly  invaded  the  domain  of 
philosophy  and  theology.  Darwin  himself  wrote 
to  the  biologist,  Ernest  Haeckel:  "Your  bold- 
ness makes  me  shudder,"  when  he  perceived  the 
daring  assumptions  to  which  his  own  hypothesis 
had  given  rise.  The  discussion  of  the  evolution 
of  organic  life  was  soon  carried  into  every  field, 
till  daring  logical  minds  declared  God  Himself 
to  be  in  the  process  of  evolution.  This  more- 
over was  an  easy  step  to  take  for  the  age  under 
the  influence  of  the  prevailing  pantheistic  phi- 
losophy. The  famous  Dutch  botanist,  Hugo  De 
Vries,  however,  in  his  "Mutationstheorie"  comes 
to  a  conclusion  the  very  opposite  of  Darwin's, 


MORAL  OBLIGATION  53 

concerning  the  origin  of  species.     We  quote  (p. 

22): 

"Quite  universally  the  doctrine  of  selection  is  con- 
sidered inadequate,  the  species  cannot  have  arisen 
through  fargoing  individual  or  fluctuating  variation 
by  means  of  selection  in  indetermined  directions. 
Species  do  not  originate,  but  disappear  through  the 
struggle  for  existence  and  through  natural  selection." 

Numerous  attacks  are  being  made  on  the 
evolutionary  dogma,  now  that  its  spell  is  broken. 
We  mention:  Professor  Dr.  A.  Pauly:  "Wahres 
und  falsches,  in  Darwin's  Lehre";  Prof.  Dr. 
Kassowitz;  "Die  Krisis  des  Darwinismus" ;  Dr. 
Dennert;  "Vom  Sterbelager  des  Darwinismus, 
etc. 

We  are  concerned  here  only  with  bearings  of 
evolution  on  human  personality  under  authority. 
Dr.  P.  T.  Forsyth,  in  an  able  article  entitled 
"Some  Christian  Aspects  of  Evolution,"  in  the 
London  Quarterly  Review,  October,  1905, 
dwells  on  this  point.     He  says: 

"The  doctrine  of  evolution  substitutes  process  for 
effort.  We  are  caught  in  a  tendency  which,  we  are 
taught,  no  effort  can  control.  We  are  borne  along  on 
a  tide  against  which  we  cannot  swim.  We  learn  the 
fruitlessness  of  moral  struggle  against  these  age-long 


54  AUTHORITY 

forces  that  have  submerged  so  many  of  the  best  moral 
attempts.  We  climb  a  climbing  wave.  We  are  crea- 
tures of  the  time  and  the  world.  We  lose  the  moral 
vigor  which  resists  a  majority,  the  public  or  the  priest, 
and  the  moral  sympathy  which  helps  to  its  feet  the  in- 
ferior race  or  the  struggling  right.  We  learn  to  dis- 
trust truth  itself.  It  is  all  relative  only,  something 
in  the  making,  and  something  which  we  can  make.  And 
it  is  all  over  with  truth  when  man  feels  himself  its  crea- 
tor. His  truth  is  not  worth  martyrdom  then,  for  it  is 
too  changing  to  be  an  object  of  faith;  and  it  is  hardly 
worth  propagandism,  for  it  will  change  ere  he  can  con- 
vert an  audience,  to  say  nothing  of  a  generation.  Real- 
ity gives  way  under  our  feet,  and  standards  vanish  like 
stars  falling  from  heaven.  Growth,  it  comes  to  be 
thought,  does  not  issue  from  being,  but  being  from 
growth.  Man  becomes  his  own  maker  and  he  has  a 
moral  fool  for  his  product." 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LAW 

In  France  "social  morality"  has  largely  sup- 
planted "individual  morality."  Individual  re- 
sponsibilities for  ethical  behavior  are  pooled  in 
a  national  morahty  ''sans  obligation  ni  sanction" 
as  Guyau  tries  to  show.  According  to  the  gen- 
eral verdict,  however,  this  morality  lacks,  exactly 
the  strength  of  sincere,  personal  endorsement. 
The  utilitarian  conception  is  but  little  better,  for 
the  main  reason  that  the  estimate  of  worth  and 
utility  can  never  attain  more  than  relative  im- 
portance. There  is  no  ndu  aroi  from  which 
to  compute  the  greatest  happiness  of  the  great- 
est number.  There  must  be  an  internal  indica- 
tion of  outer  import,  which  gives  an  authorita- 
tive dictum.  On  all  sides  we  have  primarily 
the  subjective  reference,  for  the  moral  and  re- 
ligious Hfe  announces  itself  as  a  private  and  per- 
sonal concern.  The  legal  command,  "Thou 
shalt"  or  "Thou  shalt  not"  is  to  be  obeyed  only 
as  responded  to  by  the  "I  ought,"  or  "I  ought 
not"  of  the  individual.  The  specific  applica- 
tion of  the  right  is  left  with  the  individual  and 
cannot  be  rigidly  controlled  by  the  normative  and 

65 


56  AUTHORITY 

mandatory  legal  construction  under  which  the 
personal  conscience  has  developed.  Moral,  re- 
ligious, and  civil  law  are  to  be  maintained, 
rather  than  carried  out,  because  of  a  marginal  lib- 
erty left  to  the  exclusive  uniqueness  of  the  indi- 
vidual which  cannot  be  approached  ab  extra. 

The  common  law  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  nations 
shows  a  superior  wisdom,  and  more  practical 
dealing  with  individual  life,  than  the  Roman 
law.  For,  in  approaching  individual  cases  ac- 
cording to  precedents,  the  common  law  is  en- 
abled to  do  more  justice  to  the  individual  than 
can  the  Roman  law  since  it  subsumes  the  cases 
under  its  code.  It  should,  however,  be  observed 
that  extenuating  and  aggravating  circumstances 
are  modifying  the  rigidity  of  the  theoretic  con- 
ception of  the  Roman  code.  It  is  to  be  noted, 
also,  that  many  jurists  give  the  application  of 
Roman  law  a  psychological  turn,  whilst  there  is 
a  disposition  throughout  with  sane  judges  and 
legislators  to  avoid  detailed  prescriptions.  ''De 
minimis  non  curat  lex."  Similarly  in  medicine, 
education,  etc.,  the  general,  theoretic  rule  can- 
not be  applied  without  reference  to  the  indi- 
vidual case.     Not  a  disease  but  a  case  is  treated. 

HofFding  well  observes  in  his  "Problems  of 
Philosophy" : 

"The  law,  the  demand,  must   be  differentiated   ac- 


PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LAW     57 

cording  to  the  different  individuals  if  it  is  really  to  be 
identical  for  all.  Each  one  should  be  taxed  according 
to  his  ability.  There  must  be  a  thorough-going  indi- 
vidualizing of  the  ethical  demand,  lest  Ethics  itself 
transgress  the  dictum  that  personality  is  always  an  end, 
never  a  mere  means.  The  ethical  demand  must  be  no 
abstract  or  external  command,  but  should  correspond 
to  the  ethical  possibilities  of  the  individual  person,  and 
be  adapted  to  develop  them.  Legislation  and  peda- 
gogics cannot  at  this  point  be  absolutely  sundered.  But 
in  individual  cases  this  makes  ethical  decisions  difficult. 
Ethical  thought  can  formulate  no  law  that  could  be  ap- 
plied offhand  to  all  the  manifold  emergencies  of  life. 
Nevertheless,  we  must  assume  that  in  every  individual 
case  only  a  single  decision  can  be  the  completely  right 
one." 

It  is  felt  that  the  objective  code  cannot  well 
invade  private  life  too  far.  Sumptuary  laws 
fall  under  this  condemnation.  Ethical  be- 
havior and  religious  life  cannot  be  built  into  the 
legal  constraining  fabric.  Yet,  strange  to  say, 
in  America  people  have  willingly  consented  to 
be  ruled  in  these  matters  to  an  extent  where 
Europeans  would  object  to  the  legislation  as 
meddling  with  private  concerns.  I  refer  to  cur- 
few laws,  laws  against  smoking,  dress,  drinking, 
etc.  In  olden  time,  the  so-called  "blue-laws" 
went  farther  still.  It  should  be  remarked,  how- 
ever, that  all  these  compulsory  laws  were  in- 


58  AUTHORITY 

itiated  by  a  strong  ethical  interest  and  concern. 
But  it  is  also  to  be  remembered  that,  as  any  of 
these  ethical  endeavors  begins  to  lean  on  the 
backing  of  legal  constraint,  this  is  an  indication 
that  the  ethical  interest  itself  is  on  the  wane. 
The  prohibitionists  think  that  the  whole  evil  of 
intemperance  will  be  remedied  by  the  removal  of 
the  objects  of  abuse  and  misuse.  Interest  is  un- 
duly centered  on  the  milieu  and  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  moral  life  manifests  itself,  and 
so  legal  encroachment  makes  its  appearance. 
But  even  in  law  each  case  should  be  judged  on 
its  own  merit  within  the  adumbration  of  the 
proper  legal  regulations.  Disintegration  of 
faith  in  received  codes — apart  from  inner  life- 
experiences  which  remain  primary — may  find 
explanation  largely  in  the  conflicts  occasioned 
between  difl'erent  opinions,  morals  and  religions 
by  the  intensified  inter-communication  of  the 
various  parts  of  the  world.  Any  conflict  or  com- 
parison of  opinions  involves  unsettlement,  un- 
less the  convictions  are  deep-rooted,  which  is  fre- 
quently not  the  case  in  ethics,  religion,  or  civic 
matters. 

Ladd  says  in  his  "Philosophy  of  Conduct": 

"The  authoritative  standard  leaves  the  criteria,  sanc- 
tions, and  Ideals  of  conduct  just  where  they  ought  to 
be   left  by   all   merely    descriptive,  historical   ethics — 


PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LAW     59 

namely  in  the  consciousness  of  the  multitude  of  the  in- 
dividuals that  respond  to  the  stimulus  of  external  con- 
ditions, with  appropriate  ethical  feelings  and  ideas." 

But  Ladd,  although  conceding  the  inadequacy 
of  an  external  criterion  for  ethical  conduct  as 
much  as  an  a  priori  and  impersonal  formula,  pays 
profound  and  eloquent  homage  to  the  moral 
phenomena  of  human  life  as  disclosing  Reality 
itself. 

"There  is  much,  however,  in  this  lofty  maintaining 
of  the  claims  of  universal  reason  to  have  somewhere  hid- 
den in  its  depths  the  eternal  truth  and  unchanging  prin- 
ciples of  all  morality,  which  excites  the  enthusiasm  and 
commands  the  respect  of  the  reflective  mind.  The  most 
imchanging  truths,  we  feel,  are  moral.  The  profound- 
est  insights  into  the  heart  of  Reality  are  born  of  an  eth- 
ical nature.  Man's  kinship  with  the  Infinite  and  the 
Eternal  is  most  intimate  and  strong  only  when  he  has 
arrived  at  the  maturity  of  self-consciousness.  Things 
may  be  in  an  unceasing  flux,  and  all  the  physical  struc- 
tures of  human  skill  may  crumble  away.  Even  the  ele- 
ments may  melt  with  fervent  heat,  and  the  heavens 
themselves  be  rolled  up  like  a  parchment-scroll.  But 
the  obligations  of  duty  can  never  be  abated,  the  good 
of  righteous  living  does  not  fade ;  the  moral  ideal  loses 
none  of  its  awful  beauty,  or  of  its  unconditional  value. 
Over  and  beyond  the  last  dim  and  fading  vision  of  the 
things  that  minister  to  a  sensuous  good,  there  rises  the 
spiritual  vision  of  a  good  that  is  lasting  and  supreme. 


60  AUTHORITY 

And  in  this  good  virtue  is  not  the  least,  but  rather  the 
most  important,  factor;  for  it  is  the  Ideal  which  lures 
on  and  encourages  and  commands  the  moral  conscious- 
ness of  humanity." 

We  must  now  face  more  clearly  the  issue,  that 
in  the  last  analysis  we  stand  individually  before 
this  spiritual  ideal  in  the  forms  of,  and  in  co- 
operation with,  others  through  our  social  milieu. 
We  must,  therefore,  not  attach  too  much  impor- 
tance to  the  forms  and  surroundings,  since  the 
purport  of  social  phenomena  is  to  be  interpreted 
always  and  responded  to  by  the  acting  subject. 
Paulsen  has  well  expressed  the  secondary  im- 
portance of  legalism.     He  says : 

"The  legal  order  may  be  brought  in  as  a  mechanism 
in  the  service  of  the  good  whose  function  is  to  harmon- 
ize many  individual  forces,  with  the  least  expenditure  of 
energy,  or  to  balance  many  partially  crossing  spheres 
of  interest.  But  the  legal  system  can  never  realize  this 
end,  for  in  acting  mechanically  it  does  not  act  accord- 
ing to  the  requirements  of  a  particular  case.  In  legal 
systems  we  see  the  same  thing,  individual  cases  are  de- 
cided according  to  general  rules  even  when  deciding 
specific  cases  by  themselves ;  the  method  of  procedure  is 
to  subsume  the  individual  case  under  a  general  rule  to 
ascertain  the  right." 

One  may  say,  therefore,  that  the  law  is  ex- 


PERSONAL  ELEMENT  IN  LAW     61 

tremely  useful  in  sustaining  the  public  con- 
science, if  there  be  only  due  reverence  for  the 
law,  and  if  the  law  is  not  too  rigidly  applied  in 
its  uniformity,  but  so  as  to  leave  room  for  indi- 
vidual variety  in  subsumed  cases. 

Fouillee  remarks:  "In  the  French  idea  of 
liberty  the  notion  of  society  is  never  absent,  lib- 
erty is  conceived  of  as  a  social  power  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  limited  and  regulated  by  society,  and 
that  the  liberty  of  the  one  implies  the  same  liberty 
for  others.  Liberty  appears  then  as  a  solidarity 
of  individual  activities  in  society.  This  circum- 
stance gave  occasion  for  accusing  the  French, 
not  without  reason,  of  thinking  rather  of 
equality  than  of  liberty,  and  of  not  showing  in 
practice  that  individual  initiative,  indifferent  to 
others,  which  is  so  frequent  among  other  races 
where  the  sentiment  of  'self  is  more  developed." 
Fouillee  feels  that  the  claims  of  this  subjective 
reference  are  to  be  admitted  when  he  continues  a 
little  further  on:  "The  equality  is  then  not  the 
mechanical  equalization  of  those  who  are  un- 
equal, rather  is  it  the  same  liberty  of  manifest- 
ing these  inequalities  in  the  bosom  of  society." 


CHAPTER  VI 

ROMAN    CATHOLICISM   AND   FREE- 
DOM OF  CONSCIENCE 

We  have  remarked  in  reference  to  French  so- 
ciologists that  they  especially  minimize  or  elimi- 
nate the  individual  reference,  not  only  because  of 
the  prevaiHng  strong  social  sentiments,  but  also 
because  of  the  Roman  Catholic  tradition  with 
its  emphatic  legal  morality  of  injunctions  and 
good  works  and  no  private  conscience. 
Desmoulins  in  considering  the  question,  "a  quoi 
tient  la  superiorite  des  Anglo-Saxons?"  finds 
this  superiority  in  the  individuality,  the  personal 
initiative  and  the  supremacy  of  the  conscience 
which  go  naturally  with  the  reformed  religion. 
The  apologists  of  the  confession  invariably  come 
as  near  to  the  protestant  position  on  the  freedom 
of  conscience  as  they  possibly  can.  "The  priest 
does  not  ask.  It  is  you  who  confess  your  sins  in 
his  presence.  That  is  between  you  and  God." 
Yet,  who  would  deny  that  this  violates  the  pri- 
vate conscience,  and  challenges  the  watchword 
of  the  great  Orange  in  the  struggle  of  the  refor- 
mation: "Conscience  is  God's  province."  It 
is  natural  that  by  disregard  for  individual  con- 

62 


ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  63 

science  the  zealous  Jesuits  could  emphasize  and 
cultivate  obedience  to  an  unusual  degree.  As 
some  military  ideas  would  have  it :  "Loyal  to  the 
commander,  but  dead  to  the  issue !"  "My  coun- 
try right  or  wrong,  my  country!"  The  main- 
spring of  man's  finer  sensibilities  asserts  itself, 
however,  in  the  end.  Even  Sir  James  Turner 
with  his  checkered  military  career  writes : 

"I  had  swallowed  without  chewing,  in  Germanie,  a 
very  dangerous  maxime,  which  militarie  men  there  too 
much  follow;  which  was,  that  so  we  serve  our  master 
honnestlie,  it  is  no  matter  what  master  we  serve;  so, 
without  examination  of  the  justice  of  the  quarrell,  or 
regard  of  my  duetie  to  either  prince  or  countrey,  I  re- 
solved to  goe  with  that  ship  I  first  rencounterd." 

Unless,  however,  a  man  is  aflame  with  the 
issue,  his  loyalty  to  the  commander  sustained  in 
the  task  undertaken,  no  real,  faithful  service  can 
be  rendered,  because  our  conduct  must  come 
home  to  us  individually.  Lowell  brings  this  out 
well  in  the  sentiments  of  a  disbehever  in  war : 

"  Es  fer  war,  I  call  it  murder, — 

There  you  hev  it  plain  an'  flat ; 
I  don't  want  to  go  no  furder 

Than  my  Testyment  fer  that; 
God  hez  sed  so  plump  an'  fairly, 

It's  ez  long  ez  it  is  broad, 
An'  you've  gut  to  git  up  airly 

Ef  you  want  to  take  in  God. 


64  AUTHORITY 

"  'Taint  your  eppyletts  an'  feathers 

Make  the  thing  a  grain  more  right; 
'Taint  afollerin'  your  bell-wethers 

Will  excuse  ye  in  His  sight ; 
Ef  you  take  a  sword  an'  dror  it, 

An'  go  stick  a  feller  thru, 
Guv'ment  ain't  to  answer  for  it, 

God'll  send  the  bill  to  you." 

It  is  an  interesting  subject  to  consider  the 
sphere  of  official  and  private  assumption  of  an- 
other's responsibility  in  matters  of  moral  obliga- 
tion. In  Roman  law  the  agent  is  in  some  in- 
stances dangerously  near  being  considered  a  mere 
means.  This  matter  appears  again  with  big 
concerns  in  regard  to  the  private  initiative  to  be 
left  to  their  employees.  Individual  authority, 
its  private  initiative  and  responsibility  have  to 
be  reconciled  in  co-operating  manner  with  the 
efficiency  of  the  whole.  In  all  these  matters  it 
becomes  strikingly  apparent  how  strong  a  ground 
the  Calvinistic  principle  has  in  its  vindication  of 
the  individual  domain  of  conscience  and  indi- 
viduality. 

The  Roman  Catholic  view  of  an  Infallible 
Church  implies  the  subordination  of  the  indi- 
vidual conscience  and  private  judgment  to  the 
universally  valid  supervision  of  the  authoritative 
priesthood.  This  prevailing  legal  tendency  is 
frankly  admitted  by  the  Church.     There  is  no 


ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  65 

quest  for  a  final  authority.  The  Church  mounts 
guard  with  absolute  security  over  the  private  ap- 
prehension of  moral  and  religious  truth.  Even 
Abbe  Loisy,  recently  dismissed  from  that  church 
claims  that  he  does  not  question  the  Church's 
teachings,  but  only  the  possibility  of  demonstrat- 
ing them  from  the  Gospels  according  to  the  re- 
ceived principles  and  methods  of  scientific  criti- 
cism. Thus  he  claimed  rights  as  a  critic  and  the- 
ologian, which  the  Church,  in  direct  control 
over  the  apologetic  problems  which  these  studies 
may  raise,  does  not  allow.  The  Vatican  canon 
says:  "De  Fide  et  ratione:  Si  quis  dixerit:  disci- 
plinas  humanas  ea  cum  libertate  tractandus  esse, 
ut  earum  assertiones,  etsi  doctrinae  revelatae  ad- 
versentur  tamquam  verae  retineri,  neque  ab 
Ecclesia  proscribi  possint — anathema  sit."  Re- 
nan  quotes  the  encyclical  of  Gregory  XVI  in  an 
essay  on  "Lamenais,"  who  raised  the  far-reach- 
ing disturbing  individual-investigation  and  pri- 
vate-judgment for  the  Church  whose  uniformity 
submerges  all  individual  life  as  independent  fac- 
tors: "Atque  ex  hoc  putidissimo  indifferentis- 
simi  fonte  absurda  ilia  fluit  ac  erronea  sententia, 
seu  potius  deliramentum,  asserendam  esse  ac  vin- 
dicandum  cuilibet  libertatem  conscientiae."  In 
the  same  encyclical  Augustine's  words  are 
quoted:  "At  quae  pejor  mors  animae  quam  lib- 
ertas  erroris."     Renan  also  quotes  a  letter  from 


66  AUTHORITY 

Cardinal  Pacca  to  Lamenais,  relative  to  the  en- 
cyclical: "The  Holy  Father  disapproves  also  and 
even  rejects  the  doctrines  relating  to  the  liberty 
of  cults  and  civil  and  political  liberty."  When, 
therefore,  Cardinal  Gibbons  says  in  "The  Faith 
of  our  Fathers":  "It  should  be  borne  in  mind 
that  neither  God  nor  His  Church  forces  anyone's 
conscience.  To  all  he  says  by  the  mouth  of  His 
prophet :  'Behold  I  set  before  you  the  way  of  life 
and  the  way  of  death'  ( Jer.  xxi,  8) .  The  choice 
rest  with  yourselves,"  he  is  addressing  only  the 
non-Roman  Catholic.  For  as  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic bishop  wrote  to  a  Calvinistic  friend  of  mine: 
"The  Catholics,"  it  has  been  said,  "rely  on  the 
inspired  men,  not  on  an  inspired  book."  And 
the  canonicity  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  is  held  to 
rest  solely  on  the  authority  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church.  Rehgious  authority  in  Protestant- 
ism, however,  rests  upon  the  sanction  of  inward 
conviction  in  her  creed ;  the  Bible  and  the  church 
are  norms  from  which  the  individual  starts  in 
his  own  interpretation. 

Cardinal  Gibbons  discusses  this  standpoint  in 
the  following  manner: 

"Let  us  see  whether  an  infallible  Bible  is  sufficient  for 
you.  Either  you  are  infallibly  certain  that  your  inter- 
pretation of  the  Bible  is  correct  or  you  are  not.  If 
you  are  infallibly  certain,  then  you  assert  for  yourself. 


ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  67 

and  of  course  for  every  reader  of  the  Scripture,  a  per- 
sonal infallibility  which  you  deny  to  the  Pope,  and 
which  we  claim  only  for  him.  You  make  every  man  his 
own  Pope.  If  you  are  not  infallibly  certain  that  you 
understand  the  true  meaning  of  the  whole  Bible — and 
this  is  a  privilege  you  do  not  claim — then,  I  ask,  of  what 
use  to  you  is  the  objective  infallibility  of  the  Bible  with- 
out an  infallible  interpreter!" 

The  argument  requires  no  refutation,  but  is 
adduced  as  another  concrete  instance  of  the  neg- 
lect of  the  essential  subjective  reference  in  indi- 
vidual interpretation.  Truth,  morality,  religion, 
art,  ideals  have  to  become  subjective  to  be  of  any 
avail  to  us.  This  Protestant  assertion  of  indi- 
vidualism is  well  expressed  in  the  words  of  a 
critic  quoted  by  Fouillee: 

"An  eminent  critic  has  said  that  Protestantism  was 
the  protest  of  the  individual  against  the  social  charac- 
ter of  Catholicism.  That  is  not,  to  be  sure,  a  complete 
or  adequate  definition  of  the  Reformation,  but  one  may 
concede  that  the  Reformation  was  a  revolt  of  individu- 
alism, moreover  a  just  exaltation  of  the  individual  con- 
science, individual  faith  and  individual  religion,  too 
much  stifled  under  the  forms,  the  works — and  the  col- 
lective organization  of  Catholicism." 

We  fall  back,  then,  on  the  old  evangelical 
position  in  which  the  soul  finds  satisfaction  in  its 


68  AUTHORITY 

personal  effort  to  reach  the  transcendent  ideal. 
The  sphere  of  Conduct  moreover  is  not  con- 
ceived as  the  mere  fact  of  behavior  but  as  re- 
lated to  a  transcendent  ideal  and  is  also  elevated 
into  the  concreteness  of  personality,  giving  it  re- 
ligious significance.  And  this  religious  signifi- 
cance sustains  "mere  morality"  with  God;  and 
for  the  solitary  soul,  the  one  supreme  concern  of 
each  man,  religion  discloses  duty  as  personal  re- 
sponsibility to  divine  commands,  not,  however, 
in  the  Kantian  sense  "as  if,"  but  "because  of  the 
impress  of  God."  As  Riickert  says  in  his  beau- 
tiful epigram: 

"  Before  every  one  stands  the  picture  of  what  he  should 
become, 
As  long  as  he  has  not  attained  unto  it,  his  peace  is  not 
complete." 
("Vor  jedem  steht  ein  Bild  des  das  er  werden  soil 
So  lang  er  das  nicht  ist,  ist  nicht  sein  Frieden  voll.") 

Luther,  laying  hold  upon  the  inner  conviction 
of  his  own  soul,  declares  it  inadvisable  to  under- 
take anything  against  his  conscience,  even  in  the 
face  of  an  august  assembly,  which  represented 
both  the  ecclesiastical  and  worldly  power.  When 
we  remember  that  any  individual  claims  deviat- 
ing from  the  iron-bound  scholastic  system  of  the 
middle  ages  were  at  once  met  with  the  awful 
obloquy  and  opprobrium  of  heresy,  this  act  of 


ROMAN  CATHOLICISM  69 

the  Protestant  leader  was  as  heroic  a  stand  as 
was  ever  taken  by  any  hero  in  the  course  of  his- 
tory. If  Luther  seized  upon  the  principle  which 
takes  hold  of  Reality,  then  he  was  right,  in  spite 
of  the  resulting  schisms,  in  breaking  the  legisla- 
tive codes  before  the  variegated  inner  life  of  the 
multitude.  The  whole  historic  structure  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  identifying  the  invisible  within 
with  the  expressed  visibility,  is  a  legalistic  pro- 
cedure, the  expression  of  something  in  its  essence 
never  wholly  expressed,  but  hidden  in  the  hearts 
of  the  "collective  Christ,"  the  invisible  church  of 
believers.  Dr.  A.  Kuyper  says  in  his  "Lectures 
on  Calvinism": 

"Rome  perceived  clearly  how  liberty  of  conscience 
must  loosen  the  foundations  of  the  unity  of  the  visible 
church,  and  therefore  she  opposed  it.  But  on  the  other 
hand  it  must  be  admitted  that  Calvinism,  by  praising 
aloud  liberty  of  conscience,  has  in  principle  abandoned 
every  absolute  characteristic  of  the  visible  church.  As 
soon  as  in  the  bosom  of  one  and  the  same  people  the 
conscience  of  one  half  witnessed  against  that  of  the 
other  half,  the  breach  has  been  accomplished,  and  pla- 
cards were  no  longer  of  any  avail.  As  early  as  1649 
it  was  declared  that  persecution,  for  faith's  sake,  was 
*  a  spiritual  murder,  an  assassination  of  the  soul,  a  rage 
against  God  himself,  the  most  horrible  of  sins.'  " 

Maurice  couples  "liberty  of  conscience"  with 


70  AUTHORITY 

the  expression  "conscience  of  liberty"  to  explain 
its  individualistic  meaning.  The  expression  of 
individual  life  is  the  strongest  where  the  objec- 
tive norm  has  a  less  predominating  influence. 
Wherever  conscience  of  liberty  is,  there  also  the 
cry  for  liberty  of  conscience  is  raised  against  a 
ruling  code  which  dictates  from  without.  Dr. 
Kuyper  says  again  in  his  "Lectures  on  Calvin- 
ism" : 

"I  maintain  the  sovereignty  of  conscience,  as  the  pal- 
ladium of  all  personal  liberty,  in  this  sense — that  con- 
science is  never  subject  to  man  but  always  and  ever  to 
God  Almighty.  This  need  of  the  personal  liberty  of 
conscience,  however,  does  not  immediately  assert  itself. 
It  does  not  express  itself  with  emphasis  in  the  child,  but 
only  in  the  mature  man ;  and  in  the  same  way  it  mostly 
slumbers  among  undeveloped  peoples,  and  is  irresist- 
ible only  among  highly  developed  nations.  A  man  of 
ripe  and  rich  development  will  rather  become  a  volun- 
tary exile,  will  rather  suffer  imprisonment,  nay  even 
sacrifice  life  itself  than  suffer  constraint  in  the  forum 
of  his  conscience.  And  the  deeply  rooted  repugnance 
against  the  Inquisition,  which  for  three  long  centuries 
would  not  be  assuaged,  grew  up  from  the  conviction 
that  its  practices  violated  and  assaulted  human  life  in 
man." 


CHAPTER  VII 

LEGALISM  IN  MORALS  AND 
RELIGION 

Prof.  Palmer  observes  in  "The  Field  of 
Ethics": 

"The  law  is  inadequate  to  the  moral  demand  because 
it  is  too  objective.  By  the  law  the  moral  agent  is  not 
regarded  primarily  in  himself,  subjectively,  i.e.,  with 
reference  to  the  effects  which  his  conduct  may  produce 
on  his  own  growth  and  welfare.  He  is  regarded  ob- 
jectively, i.e.,  in  relation  to  others,  and  is  accounted 
good  or  bad  according  as  he  damages  or  protects  other 
members  of  his  community.  And  this  objectivity  of 
the  law  will  oblige  us  to  look  elsewhere  for  a  full  ex- 
hibit of  the  moral  life." 

The  law  fixes  only  a  minimum  requirement 
and  as  a  mandatory  norm  addresses  itself  always 
more  or  less  to  the  individual  ab  extra,  although 
it  is  incorporated  in  his  social  life  and  tradition. 
If  we  are  to  eke  out  the  legal  deficiency,  we  must 
enter  the  recesses  of  the  heart  and  ask  whether 
the  individual  is  good  in  himself?  Conformity 
to  outward  demands  is  not  a  sufficient  evidence 
of  positive  virtue;  the  individual  as  personality 

71 


72  AUTHORITY 

is  a  vital  factor.  Schiirer  in  his  work,  "The 
Jewish  People  in  the  Time  of  Jesus  Christ," 
after  the  exposition  of  the  legal  practices  of  the 
Pharisees  in  the  Chapter,  "The  Life  Under  the 
Law,"  concludes: 

"The  examples  brought  forward  will  have  made  suffi- 
ciently evident  the  manner  in  which  the  moral  and  reli- 
gious life  was  conceived  of  and  regulated  from  the  ju- 
ristic point  of  view.  In  all  questions  everything  de- 
pended only  upon  settling  what  was  according  to  law, 
and  that  with  the  utmost  possible  care,  that  so  the  sub- 
ject might  have  certain  directions  for  every  individual 
case.  In  a  word:  ethics  and  theology  were  swallowed 
up  in  jurisprudence.  The  evil  results  of  this  external 
view  on  practical  matters  are  very  evident.  And  such 
results  were  its  necessary  consequence.  Even  in  that 
most  favorable  case  of  juristic  casuistry,  moving  on 
the  whole  in  morally  correct  paths,  it  was  in  Itself  a 
poisoning  of  the  moral  principle,  and  could  not  but 
have  a  paralyzing  and  benumbing  effect  upon  the  vig- 
orous pulsation  of  the  moral  life.  But  this  favorable 
case  by  no  means  occurred.  When  once  the  question 
was  started:  'What  have  I  to  do  to  fulfil  the  law?'  the 
temptation  was  obvious,  that  a  composition  with  the 
letter  would  be  chiefly  aimed  at,  at  the  cost  of  the  real 
demands  of  morality,  nay  of  the  proper  Intention  of 
the  law  Itself." 

Pollock's  definition  touching  the  regulative 
norm  made  mandatory  to   an  aggregate  may 


LEGALISM  AND  MORALS         73 

show  how  naturally  the  external  emphasis  in 
ethics  and  religion  results  in  clubbing  together 
the  content  of  individual  experiences  into  a  legis- 
lative dictum  for  the  aggregate.  Pollock  says 
in  his  "Jurisprudence":  "Law  may  be  regarded, 
in  its  essence  analytically,  as  a  command  from  a 
superior  to  an  inferior;  or  historically,  as  a  rule 
judicially  declared  to  be  entitled  to  general  ob- 
servance, and  therefore  obligatory."  It  is  at 
once  evident  that  law  is  the  rule  of  govermnent- 
action,  declared  or  created  by  competent  au- 
thority. This  rightly  established  authority, 
which  has  become  law  on  sufficient  grounds  in 
the  social  life,  furthers  the  inroad  of  legalism  in 
the  field  of  ethics.  Men  want  a  definite,  au- 
thoritative expression  of  the  inner  law,  and  tend 
to  lean  on  this  as  its  standard.  There  is  thus 
a  tendency  to  look  upon  a  code  of  morals  as 
regulative,  as  a  rule  of  conduct  apart  from  that 
which  the  individual  formulates  for  his  guidance 
in  the  private  pathway  of  life.  He  does  not 
cross  the  bridge  till  he  gets  to  it,  but  thinks  at 
least  of  the  mode  of  procedure,  the  method  or 
rule  by  which  it  is  to  be  done. 

Holland  is  perhaps  still  more  specific  in 
bringing  out  the  formal,  external  aspect  of  law. 
He  says  in  his  "Jurisprudence": 

"Any  particular  law,  properly  so-called,  is  a  general 


74  AUTHORITY 

rule  of  human  action  taking  cognizance  only  of  exter- 
nal acts  enforced  by  a  determinate  authority,  which  au- 
thority is  human  and  among  human  authorities  that 
which  is  paramount  in  political  society." 

In  this  definition  the  terms  "general  rule  of 
human  action,"  the  "cognizance  of  external  acts" 
only,  and  the  enforcement  "by  a  determinate 
authority"  show  that  we  have  gotten  away  from 
exclusively  personal  subjectivity  of  ethics  in 
the  attempt  to  find  a  principle  independent  of 
the  subjective  changes  in  the  individuals  who 
constitute  the  social  organization.  The  definite 
code  was  unwritten  law  long  before  it  became 
recognized  law,  but  the  rule  of  life  and  action  has 
been  sufficiently  externalized  by  public  and  gen- 
eral recognition  so  as  to  exercise  authority  as 
well  ab  extra  as  from  within.  The  feeling  of 
obligation  with  reference  to  this  established  law 
has  not  the  directness  of  the  inner  witness.  The 
"I  ought"  has  been  projected  without,  and 
stands  reflected  in  the  embodiment  of  an  ex- 
ternal "Thou  shalt." 

History,  however,  gives  distinct  warning  that 
the  preceptive  or  prescriptive  rule  is  not  enough 
in  itself;  the  personal  equation  cannot  be  elimi- 
nated with  impunity.  Law  is  fixed  and  not 
plastic;  deals  with  defined,  measured  duties,  not 
with  the  infinite  obligation;  approaches  the  sub- 


N 


LEGALISM  AND  MORALS         75 

ject  from  without,  not  from  within;  is  based  on 
an  established  moral  nature  rather  than  the 
genetic  morahty  of  the  individual;  is  exacting, — 
and  therefore,  without  close  reference  to  the  per- 
son addressed, — not  spontaneously  urging  in  in- 
timate relationships.  For  all  these  reasons 
legal  practices  are  only  props  of  ethical  and  re- 
ligious life,  because  authority  in  matters  of  con- 
science must  remain  with  the  individual.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  feeling  this,  has  applied 
the  general  rules  of  morality  to  specific  cases; 
and  the  historyl  of  casuistry  shows  in  consequence 
the  bad  excesses  of  legal  practices  in  the  ethical 
domain.  Where  the  conscience  is  not  sensitive, 
the  moral  personality  not  vigorous,  the  social, 
conventional,  legal  morality  is  much  in  evidence. 
This  is  the  case  in  a  country  like  France  with 
its  passion  for  logical  systems,  to  which  even 
facts  must  yield.  A  country  where  the  absolute 
rule  has  prevailed  for  centuries,  where  the  king 
asserted  "L'etat  c'est  moi"  and  signed  "Tel  est 
notre  plaisir,"  where  an  abbot  deplored  the  facts, 
because  they  did  not  conform  to  his  system, 
where  the  "Prinzipienreiterei"  shouted  "perisse 
le  monde,  vivent  les  principes!"  a  country  of 
cut-and-dried  theories,  which  abohshed  by  decree 
religion  and  established  a  cult  of  reason  instead, 
a  land  of  which  the  cold-blooded  Jolin  Stuart 
Mill    says    that    its    people    take    logical    co- 


76  AUTHORITY 

herence  for  proof  and  dispense  with  the  control 
of  facts.  In  this  nation,  dominated  by  the 
phrase,  carried  by  the  whirls  of  contemporary 
opinions,  the  legalistic  inroads  have  fairly  extin- 
guished individual,  moral,  and  religious  Hfe. 
Here  we  hear  of  a  religion  of  honor,  of  human- 
ity, of  patriotism,  of  science,  etc.,  as  the 
prevailing  notions  of  the  day  in  their  social 
world  will  have  it.  In  France  where  solid, 
strong  personalities  are  shelved  by  a  frivolous 
majority  as  a  "genre  ennuyeux  qui  n'est  pas 
bon"  the  people  have  suffered  irreparably  from 
the  curse  of  legalism.  Hugo  pleads  this  point  in 
"Les  Miserables,"  showing  how  destructive  the 
rigid,  mechanical  conception  of  the  law  is  to  the 
individual  life.  Honore  de  Balzac  says  in  "Pere 
Goriot":  He  (Eugene  de  Rastignac)  had  seen 
the  three  great  expressions  of  human  society: 
Obedience,  Struggle  and  Revolt ;  or  the  Family, 
the  World  and  Vautrin  (the  convict) .  He  dared 
ally  himself  with  neither.  Obedience  was  weari- 
some. Revolt,  impossible,  and  Struggle,  uncer- 
tain. 

We  quote  Hugo's  eloquent  words  against 
French  legalism: 

"Javert  had  certainly  always  had  the  intention  of  re- 
turning Jean  Valjean  to  the  law,  of  which  Jean  Valjean 
was  the  captiz^e,  and  of  which  he,  Javert,  was  the  slave. 


LEGALISM  AND  MORALS         77 

That,  however,  J  avert  and  Jean  Vol  jean,  the  man  made 
to  he  severe,  the  man  made  to  he  submissive,  that  these 
two  men,  who  were  each  the  thing  of  the  law,  should 
have  come  to  this  point  of  setting  themselves  hoth  above 
the  law,  was  not  this  terrible?  Jean  Valjean  was  the 
weight  on  Javert's  mind.  His  supreme  anguish  was  the 
loss  of  all  certainty.  He  felt  that  he  was  uprooted. 
The  code  was  now  but  a  stump  in  his  hand.  He  had  to 
do  with  scruples  of  an  unknown  species.  There  was  in 
him  a  revelation  of  feeling  entirely  distinct  from  the 
declaration  of  the  law,  his  only  standard  hitherto.  An 
entire  order  of  unexpected  facts  arose  and  subjugated 
him.  An  entire  new  world  appeared  to  his  soul,  favor 
accepted  and  returned;  devotion,  compassion,  indul- 
gence, acts  of  violence  committed  by  pity  upon  auster- 
ity, respect  of  persons,  the  possibility  of  a  tear  in  the 
eye  of  the  law,  a  mysterious  justice,  according  to  God, 
going  counter  to  justice  of  men.  He  perceived  in  the 
darkness  the  fearful  rising  of  an  unknown  moral  sun, 
he  was  horrified  and  blinded  by  it.  An  owl  compelled 
to  an  eagle's  gaze.  He  said  to  himself  that  it  was  true, 
then,  that  there  were  exceptions,  that  authority  might 
be  put  out  of  countenance ;  that  rule  might  stop  before 
a  fact;  that  everything  was  not  framed  in  the  text  of 
the  code. 

"To  feel  your  fingers  suddenly  open !  To  lose  your 
hold,  appalling  thing!  The  projectile  man  no  longer 
knowing  his  road,  and  recoiling!  To  be  obliged  to 
acknowledge  this :  infallibility  is  not  infallible ;  there 
may  be  an  error  in  the  dogma ;  all  is  not  perfect ;  au- 
thority is   complicate  with  vacillation;   a   cracking  is 


78  AUTHORITY 

possible  in  the  immutable ;  judges  are  men ;  the  law  may 
be  deceived ;  the  tribunals  may  be  mistaken !  What ! 
the  flaw  in  the  cuirass  of  society  could  be  found  by  a 
magnanimous  wretch !  What !  a  servant  of  the  law 
could  find  himself  suddenly  caught  between  two  crimes — 
the  crime  of  letting  a  man  escape  and  the  crime  of  ar- 
resting him !  All  was  not  certain  in  the  order  given  by 
the  state  to  the  official.  If  facts  did  their  duty  they 
would  be  contented  with  being  the  proofs  of  the  law; 
facts,  it  is  God  who  sends  them." 

Although  the  facts  gathered  from  human  ex- 
perience, elaborated  into  moral  and  civic  codes 
have  a  certain  authority,  their  forms  have  no  au- 
thority which  excludes  fallibility.  We  must 
therefore  refrain  from  excessive  emphasis  on  the 
conventional  or  legal  morality.  The  expressed 
morality  of  conformity  to  moral,  religious,  and 
civic  rule  may  be  without,  or  even  at  the  cost  of, 
the  inner  moraHty  from  which  it  sprang.  Yet, 
as  observed,  the  relation  between  the  individual 
and  the  social  ideal  is  close,  in  that  the  social 
morality  furnishes  the  material  for  the  construc- 
tion of  the  individual  ideal  in  the  form  of  per- 
sonal experience.  But  the  evil  of  legahsm  is  un- 
due encroachment  upon  the  individual.  The  in- 
dividual conscience  is  weakened  when  the  sub- 
jective reference  of  legalism  is  discarded.  Be- 
sides, conventional,  average  morality,  cultivates 
simply  the  negative  virtues,  the  absence  of  ap- 


LEGALISM  AND  MORALS         79 

parent  vices.  Thus  the  idea  of  morality  and  re- 
hgion  is  conceived  prevailingly  and  naturally  as 
restraint,  not  as  conformity  to  truth  and  right, 
as  a  life  responsive  to  and  expressive  of  a  posi- 
tive principle  within.  The  apparent  opposition 
between  the  absolute,  positive  virtues  born  in  the 
soul-life,  and  the  ethical  endeavors  in  the  sight 
of  men  disappears,  when  we  bear  in  mind  their 
interrelation.  For  an  understanding  of  our  eth- 
ical life,  its  social  expressions,  we  must  rightly 
estimate  its  individual,  personal  ground  and  sup- 
port. An  interview  as  to  legitimacy  of 
pleasures,  addressed  to  well-known  divines  of 
different  denominations,  showed  this  in  striking 
fashion.  Bishop  D.  H.  Greer,  Dr.  B.  P.  Ray- 
mond, Dr.  Newman  Smyth,  Dr.  C.  H.  Park- 
hurst,  Dr.  J.  B.  Remensnyder,  Dr.  R.  Stuart 
Mac  Arthur,  Dr.  E.  B.  Kephart  and  Cardinal  J. 
Gibbons  all  concurred  in  acknowledging  the 
complexity  of  the  moral  life,  affirming  "that  the 
church  should  beware  of  the  artificial  conscience 
and  the  externality  and  superficiality  of  the  re- 
ligious hfe  wherever  that  conscience  is  culti- 
vated." Under  the  Gospel  men  are  expected 
to  walk  not  by  chalk  lines  but  by  the  law  of  the 
renewed  mind.  Morality  is  not  determined  by 
a  series  of  specific  directions.  The  office  of  the 
church  is  to  educate  the  Christian  conscience, 
not     to     impose     prohibitions;     to     formulate 


80  AUTHORITY 

a  law  of  comprehension,  not  a  rule  of  ex- 
clusion. J.  Wesley  declared:  "The  Christian 
may  not  do  those  things  which  he  knows  are  not 
for  the  glory  of  God."  In  the  General  Con- 
ference of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in 
1872,  however,  the  attempt  was  made  to  specify 
required  "negative  virtues."  The  IMethodist 
Church  prohibits  dancing,  card-playing,  and 
theater-going,  and  practically  also  smoking  and 
drinking.  The  leaning  on  prescriptive,  con- 
crete forms  defeats  the  purpose  of  the  ethical  law 
by  weakening  the  moral  fiber.  It  is  apt  to  culti- 
vate the  kind  of  people  who  are  outwardly  good, 
because  they  dare  not  be  bad,  religionists  for 
whom  this  outward  conformity,  performed  in 
good  faith,  constitutes  religion,  and  who,  there- 
fore, by  fulfilling  the  legal  minimum,  incline  to 
a  boast  possible  on  this  basis,  yet  never  justified. 
Least  of  all  where  the  requirements  met  are  mere 
legal  demands  as  prescribed  in  social  forms. 
Rather  are  they  upheld  by  the  law  of  which  they 
allege  themselves  to  be  the  proud  supporters,  in- 
asmuch as  in  their  paraded  legal  observance  of 
the  good  they  are  but  the  captives  of  the  posi- 
tive virtue  of  others,  elevated  into  normative  law. 
This  criticism  of  legal  morality  applies  to  all,  but 
it  is  furthered  by  the  prescriptive  virtue  of 
which  Methodism  seems  to  be  unduly  fond.  It 
does  not  tend  to  raise  positive,  strong  charac- 


LEGALISM  AND  MORALS         81 

ters,  aims  at  an  impossible  preservation  of  inno- 
cence rather  than  at  moral  excellency  tested  and 
proved  in  life's  struggle. 

The  contents  and  forms  of  morality  and  reli- 
gion are  assimilated  from  stored  up  tradition  and 
legal  codes, — but  in  varying  degree  and  manner 
according  to  the  reaction  of  the  appropriating 
agent.  On  this  account,  the  detail  of  judgment 
in  moral  action  should  be  left  to  the  individual. 
He  must  be  the  final  arbiter  in  his  own  case,  for 
motive  and  intention  are  known  only  to  him. 
Fouillee  for  example  admits  that  the  subjective 
bearings  are  fundamental  in  moral  and  religious 
life: 

"On  a  voulu  faire  de  I'imitation  un  phenomene  primi- 
tif  fondement  de  I'ordre  social.  Nous  admettons  (et 
c'est  la  un  des  principes  de  la  doctrine  des  idees-forces), 
que  toute  representation  intense,  repetee,  exclusive,  tend 
a  se  faire  action  parceque  toute  representation  est  ac- 
compagnee  d'un  mouvement ;  mais  I'imitation  n'est 
qu'un  corollaire  de  ce  theoreme,  non  un  principe.  La 
tendance  innee  a  la  sympathie  pour  les  uns  et  I'antipathie 
pour  les  autres  a  sans  doute  son  expression  objective 
dans  I'imitation  des  uns  et  la  non-imitation  des  autres ; 
mais  c'est  la  seulement  une  des  expressions  de  la  sym- 
pathie, non  la  seule,  selon  nous  ni  la  plus  essentielle." 

("Some  have  tried  to  construe  imitation  as  the  prime 
foundation  of  our  social  order.  We  admit  [and  this  is 
one  of  the  principles  of  the  idea-forces]  that  every  in- 


82  AUTHORITY 

tense  representation,  repeated,  exclusive,  tends  to  turn 
into  action,  because  every  representation  is  accompanied 
by  a  motion,  but  imitation  is  only  a  corrollary  of  this 
theory,  not  a  principle.  The  innate  tendency  has  for 
some  sympathy,  for  others  antipathy,  and  correspond- 
ingly result  its  objective  expression  in  the  imitation  of 
the  former  and  in  the  non-imitation  of  the  latter.  But 
this  is  only  one  of  the  expressions  of  sympathy,  and 
neither  the  only  one,  nor  the  most  essential.") 


CHAPTER  VIII 
INDIVIDUAL  WILL 

Professor  A.  T.  Ormond  has  expounded  well 
the  psychological  ground  in  imitation,  conscious- 
ness of  kind,  and  conduct  as  vitalized  social 
forms,  and  has  shown  that  they  all  involve  and 
refer  to  an  inner  activity  of  the  subject.  In  an 
article  on  the  "Social  Individual"  he  says: 

"The  touch  that  makes  us  kin  is  an  inner  touch, 
while  the  objective  and  outer  motive  that  leads  to  the 
touch  is  either  an  imitative  movement  or  a  representa- 
tion that  is  rendered  capable  of  a  reference  to  the  inner 
consciousness  of  another  by  means  of  prior  association 
with  inner  experiences  of  our  own.  .  .  .  The  in- 
ternal or  appreciative  moment  of  the  social  life,  as  re- 
lated to  our  fellow-creatures  in  which  sphere  the  ethical 
life  functions,  lies  with  the  individual  and  this  reaction 
of  the  individual  involves  his  whole  personality." 

Again  in  his  "Foundations  of  Knowledge," 
Professor  Ormond  says: 

"We  are  obliged  to  trace  the  primary  root  of  the 
sense  of  kind  to  the  self  in  some  primary  individual  na- 
ture, that  in  becoming  internally  conscious  becomes  also 

83 


84  AUTHORITY 

the  *fontal  type'  of  all  ends  which  it  seeks  objectively." 
"The  reaction  of  the  subject-consciousness  is  a  re- 
action as  a  whole,  and  self-apprehension  will  be  a  func- 
tion of  this  mode  of  reaction.  If  we  are  sure  of  our 
self-activity,  we  have  that  assurance  because  we  grasp 
it  in  an  act  of  immediate  intuition.  It  cannot  be 
disputed,  then,  that  we  know  the  fact  of  our  self- 
activity.  ...  If  in  the  reactive  consciousness, 
self-activity,  and  not  simply  activity  that  has  no  label 
is  revealed,  then  it  is  clear  that  we  have  a  qualifica- 
tion of  the  content  as  a  whole  which  renders  it  not 
merely  a  "that,"  but  a  "what."  The  fact  that  the 
activity  is  taking  the  form  of  a  self  shows  that  it  is 
not  formless,  but  is  defining  itself  as  a  whole." 

Therefore  we  do  not  assume  a  special  faculty 
which  assures  us  of  our  moral  bearings,  nor  do 
we  arrive  at  our  ethical  interpretations  mainly 
through  the  intellect,  but  we  find  our  moral 
obligations  vested  in  our  whole  personality.  We 
are  in  touch  with  the  Infinite  with  our  whole 
personality.  Professor  Ladd  explains  this  fact 
by  an  ontological  consciousness. 

"Man  has  an  ontological  consciousness.  Ontological 
speculation  is  an  essential  function  of  the  human  race, 
the  necessary  forms  of  thought  are  insights  into  the 
nature  of  Reality.  The  human  mind  seeks  after  the 
unity  of  an  explanatory  Ground,  and  finds  it,  it  recog- 
nizes as  the  inner  and  ultimate  truth  of  the  world  that 
it  is  the  expression,  the  manifestation,  the  realization 


INDIVIDUAL  WILL  85 

of  Absolute  Mind.  The  Absolute  so  recognized  is  posi- 
tive and  full;  the  very  opposite  of  the  Unreality,  it  is 
the  fruitful  source  of  all  relations.  It  is  Spirit — i.  e., 
a  Will  self-active  in  the  realization  of  ideal  ends :  this 
is  the  innermost  essence  of  all  Reality.  It  is  the  know- 
ing Subject,  from  which  issues  'the  most  fundamental 
and  comprehensive  of  all  relations,  that  between  the 
knower  and  what  is  known.'  " 

If  we  conclude  with  the  generally  accepted 
theories  that  will-psychology  once  more  pre- 
dominates over  the  claims  of  the  intellect,  we  are 
inclined  to  give  judgment,  as  such,  a  secondary 
place  in  morals  and  religion,  but  the  disposition 
of  the  heart  primary  consideration.  Even 
Thomas  Aquinus  in  his  Aristotelianized  Chris- 
tian system  defined  conscience  as  "the  disposi- 
tion to  realize  natural  law." 

So  the  specific  ethical  feature  is  to  be  lodged 
rather  in  the  response  of  the  individual  than  in 
the  content  to  which  the  response  is  made, 
although  as  one  responds  so  is  one  responsible. 
On  the  face  of  it,  therefore,  the  enlightenment 
through  the  wisdom  of  experience  represented  in 
tradition,  civilization,  dogmas,  and  codes  is  an 
immense  help.  The  absolute  worth  is  in  the  re- 
sponse; but  in  view  of  the  close,  organic  relation 
between  the  subjective  response  and  the  objec- 
tive situation,  to  which  the  responding  effort 
is  directed,  the  latter  is  indicative  of  the  subjec- 


86  AUTHORITY 

tive  attitude.  In  keeping  with  this,  the  outside 
view  in  "ejective  interpretation"  infers  the  inner 
motive  from  externalized  behavior.  As  has 
been  shown,  this  can  be  only  an  approximate 
estimate;  whilst  the  judgment  as  to  its  ethical 
value,  which  insists  that  good  must  be  good  for 
something,  is  always  defeated  in  its  computa- 
tion for  the  lack  of  a  standing  ground;  for 
ethical  systems  enter  upon  an  infinitely  complex 
field  of  unending  consequences.  Moreover,  the 
reaction  upon  the  acting  subject  cannot  be  com- 
puted. The  moral  and  religious  features  lie  pri- 
marily with  the  initiative  of  moral  behavior, 
though  inextricably  conjoined  with  the  direction 
and  form  which  takes  under  given  surroundings 
and  circumstances. 

Prof.  Caldecott  remarks  in  his  "Philosophy  of 
Religion" : 

"Modem  psychologists  in  their  various  ways  regard 
mental  life  as  consisting  primarily  of  processes  of  will 
directed  to  the  satisfaction  of  feeling;  and  making  use 
of  intellect  as  instrumental.  In  this  way  they  describe 
much  of  every  individual's  experience  as  due  to  himself, 
inasmuch  as  he  has  neglected  to  attend  to  vast  ranges 
of  objects  which  have  only  just  appeared  in  the  con- 
fines of  his  field  of  view,  but  killed  by  neglect,  have 
perished.  These  have  not  been  taken  into  experience, 
therefore,  which  have  been  made  up  of  those  objects 
which  received  a  welcome  and  were  attended  to  by  per- 


INDIVIDUAL  WILL  87 

sonal  preference.  Thus  every  man's  world  is  much  more 
his  own  creation  than  intellect-psychology  had  led  us  to 
suppose ;  much  more  the  product  of  his  own  personal 
choice.  It  is,  in  short,  personal  choice  which  is  the 
core  and  pith  of  the  life  of  the  human  soul." 

Fichte  sought  to  account  for  this  personal 
element  when  he  defined  a  volition  as  the  imme- 
diate consciousness  of  the  activity  of  any  of  the 
powers  of  Nature  within  us.  But  will  is  a  per- 
son's active  power  toward  a  self-chosen  end, 
which  mocks  rationalistic  schemes  with  the  well- 
known  saying:  "Who  is  convinced  against  his 
will,  is  of  the  same  opinion  still."  It  reminds 
of  Tennyson's 

"Our  wills  are  ours  we  know  not  how 
Our  wills  are  ours  to  make  them  Thine." 

The  personal  equation  entering  into  our 
knowledge  as  a  result  of  the  grasping  of  facts 
with  personal  bias  has  received  ample  treatment 
in  the  discussions  on  "selective  thinking"  and 
pragmatism.  They  coiToborate  the  position 
which  proclaims  responsibility  for  beliefs,  and 
considers  that  ignorance  of  the  right  is  sinful. 
Reading  the  damnatory  clauses  of  the  Atha- 
nasian  creed  in  the  light  of  their  implication, 
they    might    appear    less    arbitrary    than    the 


88  AUTHORITY 

eighteen  deans  urged  upon  the  Archbishops  of 
Canterbury  and  of  York  that  they  were: 

1.  Quicumque  vult  salvus  esse,  ante  omnia 
opus  est  ut  teneat  catholicum  fidem. 

2.  Quam  nisi  quis  integram  inviolatamque 
servaverit  absque  dubio  in  aeternum  peri- 
bit. 

3.  Fides  autem  Catholica  haec  est  ut  unum 
Deum  in  Trinitate,  et  Trinitatem  in  Uni- 
tate  veneremur. 

The  agent  is  ^fallible  and  changeable  in 
judgments,  whilst  the  ideal-constructions  are 
made  of  unreliable  material.  The  "Zeitgeist"  is 
neither  sufficient  nor  final,  and  the  agent  selects 
the  materials  according  to  his  heart's  intent,  and 
this  condemns  itself  in  the  universal  sentiment 
of  deficiency  or  sin.  But  it  is  evident  that  there 
is  in  the  mass  of  codified  wisdom  an  indication 
of  tried  experience,  an  experience  of  numberless 
creatures  who  have  lived  in  touch  with  the  Abso- 
lute. The  claims  of  private  judgments,  there- 
fore, should  never  go  to  the  extent  of  tearing 
away  the  heritage  of  the  ages,  or  abolishing  the 
intermediary  functions  of  this  embodied  larger 
experience.  Individualistic  views  of  ethics  stand 
in  strange  contrast  with  actual  behavior.  If  the 
dogmas  and  codes  do  not  fit,  the  fancy  and  fads 
of  the  day  are  readily  espoused  as  a  regulative 
norm. 


CHAPTER  IX 
AUTHORITY  IN  PHILOSOPHY 

Mirabeau  thundered  out  in  matchless  elo- 
quence before  the  convention  in  his  address  to  the 
people:  "If  it  be  contrary  to  act  against  one's 
conscience,  it  is  none  the  less  so  to  form  one's 
conscience  after  false  and  arbitrary  principles. 
The  obligation  to  form  and  enlighten  one's  con- 
science is  anterior  to  the  obligation  to  follow 
one's  conscience."  Hence  instruction  in  mor- 
ality is  of  great  importance.  Professor  James 
said,  in  an  address  before  the  University  of  CaH- 
fornia:  "The  whole  function  of  thinking  is  but 
one  step  in  the  production  of  habits  of  action." 
This,  of  course,  is  the  reactionary  view  against 
theoretic  formulations,  well  defined  by  Prof. 
James  as  "a  method  for  estimating  the  practical 
value  and  results  of  philosophical  conceptions." 
It  involves  difficulties  in  charging  that  which  is 
made  such  an  extremely  inferior  affair  with  a 
mission  too  high  to  fulfill,  namely,  "the  produc- 
tion of  habits  of  action."  The  pragmatic 
method  must  be  elevated  into  a  philosophy,  if  it 
is  to  maintain  itself  in  the  world  of  thought. 
Philosopliies,  however,  are  rather  expressive  of 

89 


90  AUTHORITY 

than  productive  of  the  behavior  of  vohtional  hfe. 
"As  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he" 
(Proverbs  xxiii,  7).  This  reaction  is  because  of 
the  extreme  emphasis  upon  theoretic  formula- 
tions, the  logical  coherence  of  which  was 
esteemed  of  prime  importance,  without  due  re- 
gard to  the  infinite  variety  of  life,  which  always 
left  in  each  system  unmanageable  residua. 
Thus  systems  sometimes  forced  facts  in  their 
effort  to  secure  logical  consistency,  though  em- 
phasis on  certain  principles  failed  to  treat  all  the 
elements  in  proper  proportion.  Yet  there  is  a 
tendency  in  man  which  leads  him  to  strive  for  a 
unified  whole,  a  Weltanschauung.  And  a 
modern  Weltanschauung  is  much  easier  held 
than  a  time-honored  creed.  Ex-President 
Eliot  even  proposes  to  make  "a  judicious  selec- 
tion of  behefs"  as  if  they  were  taken  up  or  dis- 
carded at  our  discretion,  instead  of  being  grown 
in  the  very  texture  of  our  inner  experiences. 
The  over-emphasis  on  intellectualism  is,  how- 
ever, to  be  charged  in  a  large  measure  to  those 
who  denounce  the  credal  formulations  as  "intel- 
lectual gymnastics  and  useless  logical  struc- 
tures." They  make  education  of  the  intellect 
the  panacea  for  all  ills,  forgetting  that  this  is  not 
the  main  faculty  of  personality.  It  is,  however, 
consistent  with  the  social  interpretation  that 
slights  the  personal  factor. 


AUTHORITY  IN  PHILOSOPHY      91 

Attention  should  be  called  to  the  illogical  pro- 
cedure of  discarding  the  codes  and  systems  that 
constitute  the  inherited  wisdom  of  the  past. 
Especially  is  this  unwise  in  an  age  in  which  evo- 
lutionary theories  have  linked  us  everywhere  in 
the  different  phases  of  our  development  with  the 
past.  To  be  consistent  it  should  teach  that 
moral  and  religious  codes  are  to  be  studied  in 
order  that  they  may  teach  us  with  the  rich  ex- 
perience of  past  generations.  If  Max  Miiller's 
"impassable  barrier"  between  brutes  and  man  as 
constituted  in  the  essential  human  capacity  to 
transmit  in  language  the  experience  of  the  race 
from  preceding  generations  to  those  succeeding 
is  denied  in  the  interest  of  our  kinship  with  the 
brutes,  still  the  kinship  of  man  with  man  must 
always  be  even  closer  and  more  useful.  His  in- 
corporated dogmas  and  codes  may  still  be  re- 
sorted to  as  embodying  traditional  wisdom.  In 
fact  the  incorporation  of  life's  experiences  into 
codes  is  the  philosophy  constructed  by  man  in 
general,  whilst  its  systematizing  and  compre- 
hensive grouping  is  done  by  gifted  individuals. 
As  Balfour  says  in  his  "Foundations  of  Religious 
Behef":  "Systems  are  and  must  be  for  the  few, 
the  majority  of  mankind  are  content  with  a 
mood  or  temper  of  the  thought."  Balfour 
speaks  of  "psychological  climates"  in  which  men 
are  formed,  and  of  the  effect  on  their  beliefs 


92  AUTHORITY 

produced  by  custom,  education,  public  opinions, 
church,  and  myriad  other  silent,  unnoticed  influ- 
ences of  "local  color." 

Our  inner  assent  is  not  an  affair  of  the  intel- 
lect alone;  it  springs  from  our  whole  personality 
as  developed  in  its  surroundings.  It  is  well  to 
observe  that  the  predominance  of  the  volitional 
element  in  life,  however,  does  not  justify  a  re- 
jection of  the  claims  of  reason.  Such  opposi- 
tion between  will  and  reason  may  easily  be 
turned  into  a  subjectivism,  which  will  not  allow 
any  objective  authority.  Balfour's  "authority" 
is  the  influence  in  the  individual  which  prevails 
mostly  with,  often  without,  sometimes  against, 
intellect  in  the  assent  given  to  certain  creeds. 
The  objective  element,  of  course,  has  to  be 
recognized  or  the  result  will  be  moral  and  re- 
ligious anarchy.  If  the  volitional  element  of 
personality  is  set  apart  from  the  recognized 
codes  which  represent  the  outcome  of  reflected, 
reasoned  experience,  the  individual  claims  will 
run  riot.  An  objective  criterion  is  found  pro- 
visionally in  the  comparison  of  our  life-experi- 
ences with  the  outcome  of  a  larger,  and  longer- 
tried  experience.  This  provides  the  co-opera- 
tion and  coherence  needed  in  the  growth  of  civi- 
lization. To  an  astonishingly  large  extent 
the  moral  life  relies  on  the  verdict  of  others,  on 
the  collective  mind  and  traditional  wisdom  of  the 


AUTHORITY  IN  PHILOSOPHY      93 

past  as  confirmatory  and  corroborative.  Dr. 
Stanton  remarks  truly:  "If  religious  knowledge 
is  to  exist  objectively  at  all  and  not  relatively  to 
the  individual  consciousness  alone,  the  principle 
of  authority  must  enter,  as  it  does  in  all  kind  of 
knowledge."  There  is  usually  with  the  well-in- 
formed person  an  individual  decision,  a  deliber- 
ate relegation  of  authority,  which  proceeds  from 
the  individual,  but  which  means  to  submit  by  an 
act  of  faith  to  the  larger  wisdom  of  codes, 
dogmas,  civil  law,  unwritten  or  written  statutes, 
which  consensus  has  established  as  valid  guides 
for  public  conduct.  And  this  intermediary 
function  of  traditional  inheritance  in  regard  to 
reflected,  ordered  experience  is  to  be  commended 
to  those  impatient  with  all  restraint  and  law. 
Even  when  granting  this  submission  to  legal  au- 
thority to  be  intermediary  and  provisional  till  it 
approves  itself,  such  acts  of  faith  are  required 
over  the  whole  field  of  human  activity,  and  are  a 
prerequisite  of  all  knowledge.  That  this  moral 
law  imposed  upon  us  by  authority  foreign  to  our 
personality  should  be  more  than  the  fallible  con- 
sensus of  opinion,  which  admits  of  no  determi- 
nation of  an  absolute  and  final  sort,  is  admitted. 
Yet  people  do  lean  and  have  to  lean  on  each 
other  in  their  advance  in  moral  and  religious 
life  as  elsewhere.  Authority  and  example  lead 
the   world.     As    Schopenhauer   said:    "Urteilen 


94  AUTHORITY 

aus  eigenen  Mitteln  ist  das  Vorrecht  Weniger: 
die  Ubrigen  leitet  Autoritat  und  Beispiel."  J. 
S.  Mill  says  in  his  essay  on  "Liberty":  "In 
proportion  to  a  man's  want  of  confidence  in  his 
own  solitary  judgment,  does  he  usually  repose 
with  the  implicit  trust  on  the  infallibility  of  'the 
world'  in  general.  It  was  the  ductile  disposi- 
tion of  Newman  which  made  the  writer  of  'Lead 
Thou  Me  On'  repose  on  the  bold  assumption  of 
the  Romish  Church,  instead  of  relying  on  the 
solitary  witness  whose  Ariadne-thread  winds 
through  the  labyrinth  of  numberless  sentiments 
and  situations  of  our  complex  life.  He  wanted 
his  "Grammar  of  Assent"  made  out  for  him.  It 
was  lack  of  faith  in  the  unfortified  inwardness 
of  Truth's  witness  which  led  him  to  put  his  faith 
in  the  definite  formulations  and  organizations  of 
Rome's  visible  church." 

"Denn  ach,  die  Gotter  leihen  keine  pfander!" 
In  the  changing,  multifarious  heterogeneity  of 
codes  and  verdicts,  the  individual  needs  confir- 
mation; and  so  he  is  led  to  legal  formulations. 
But  in  them  he  may  find — to  use  the  same  figure 
— not  the  pledge,  but  the  very  gods  themselves, 
provided  he  truly  follows  the  given  thread  in  the 
conduct  of  his  life — the  unanalyzable  ought-feel- 
ing, the  simple  sentiment  of  obhgation,  his  con- 
science. 

Formulated  systems  may  be  little  known  by 


AUTHORITY  IN  PHILOSOPHY      95 

the  mass  of  men,  yet  all  contribute  to  some  ex- 
tent to  the  ever-increasing  amount  of  incorpo- 
rated hfe-experiences  as  the  influences  of  their 
lives  pass  into  the  sum-total  of  human  civihza- 
tion.  To  understand  this  aright  is  the  phi- 
losophy of  all  ages.  Adjustment  to  the  world 
is  personal.  The  Weltanschauung  gained  from 
some  individual  viewpoint  must  be  corrected  by 
the  added  wisdom  of  a  larger  horizon.  And  this 
comes  from  legalism,  the  creation  of  the  "ob- 
jective mind"  which  is  the  unsystematized  philos- 
ophy of  the  past  generations  of  men. 

Thus  becomes  philosophic  study;     do  (pdoaoipia 
d.XXa  (ptloao(puv. 


CHAPTER  X 

PHILOSOPHIES  OF  THE  DAY  AND 
REVEALED  AUTHORITY 

There  is  no  greater  blunder  than  to  set 
oneself  against  what  the  past  offers  as  codes  of 
tried  experience.  The  Ritschlian  cry  of  "re- 
ligion without  theology,"  and  its  declaration,  "I 
must  not  theologically  affirm  what  I  have  not  re- 
ligiously experienced,"  is  an  unwarranted  asser- 
tion of  lawlessness,  which  would  at  once  be 
recognized  as  absurd  in  civil  law.  This  protest, 
however,  is  made  almost  exclusively  against 
moral  and  religious  codes.  If  these  doctrines 
are  only  men's  formulations,  yet  they  are  accu- 
mulated verdicts  of  the  moral  and  religious  ex- 
perience of  vast  ranges.  Is  not  the  individual 
rash,  therefore,  in  seeking  "emancipation"  from 
the  restraint  which  such  codes  put  upon  him? 
Instead  of  asserting  his  unaided  views  against 
those  codes,  he  should  rather  make  fair  trial  of 
them  by  personal  interpretation  with  the  convic- 
tion that  these  codes  will  be  understood  better 
as  they  are  lived.  But  if  they  contain  the  reve- 
lation of  divine  truth  of  supernatural  origin,  then 
the  incapacity  to  perceive  and  receive  the  doc- 

96 


REVEALED  AUTHORITY  97 

trine  means  simply  that  the  age  is  lacking  in 
moral  fiber. 

Dr.  Swete  says:  "Faith  is  in  the  last  analysis 
the  act  of  the  will  and  not  of  the  intellect,  in  its 
essence  a  moral  act."  It  is  the  recognition  of 
that  which  announces  itself  as  foreign,  as  other 
than  self,  to  which  the  will  bends  as  the 
volitional  life  is  guided  in  its  responses.  It  is  an 
essentially  false  verdict  of  the  inner  experiences 
of  soul-life  to  refuse  an  objective  criterion  for 
our  moral  and  religious  life  on  the  ground  that 
dogmas  are  derivative  and  are  not  the  experi- 
ences themselves.  If  immediate  experiences  an- 
nounce themselves  as  having  certain  causes,  we 
should  not  interpret  them  as  merely  subjective. 
Just  as  on  the  simple  testimony  of  our  percep- 
tive faculty  we  believe  in  the  existence  of  object 
perceived  and  subject  perceiving,  so  we  should 
also,  in  our  ethical  depositions,  take  the  verdicts 
of  the  moral  sense  as  veracious.  If  the  artistic, 
poetical,  and  religious  sentiments  disclose  a 
cognitive  apprehension  of  feeling,  then  we  should 
take  account  of  this  in  the  same  way.  The  phe- 
nomena of  the  inner  life  should  be  treated  in 
the  same  way  as  all  other  facts,  not  refused,  but 
used.  It  is  reversing  things,  to  say,  though 
faith  projects  the  reality  to  which  the  religious 
life  testifies,  that  faith  is  not  from  God,  but 
postulates  Him  to  unite  the  valuable  with  the 


98  AUTHORITY 

existing.  To  keep  us  in  a  mass  of  unexplained 
experiences  under  an  unwarranted  assumption  of 
subjectivity,  is  to  force  an  agnosticism  on  us  for 
the  sake  of  that  moral  and  religious  anarchy 
which  proclaims,  De  moribus  non  est  disputan- 
dum.  As  Dr.  Rittelmeyer  said:  "Choice  is  free 
for  each  individual,  for  the  highest  values,  as 
modern  ethics  maintain,  are  like  the  final  ideas  of 
a  Weltanschauung,  a-logical  (a-logisch),  that  is, 
they  cannot  be  forced  upon  anyone  by  argu- 
ments of  the  understanding."  This  involves 
neither  mere  subjectivity,  nor  independence  of 
all  objective  criteria  to  its  exclusion  of  intellec- 
tual verification.  It  rather  means  that  ration- 
alism declares  its  own  bankruptcy.  In  life  it- 
self we  find  not  only  the  objective  norm  but  also 
the  justification  of  the  moral  life.  In  spite  of  the 
assumed  subjectivity,  reference  is  always  made 
to  the  vast  deposits  of  religious  and  moral  life 
with  the  imphcit  admission  of  the  truthfulness 
of  their  contents.  The  objection  that  the  truth 
of  religious  inheritance  should  not  be  taught,  but 
experienced,  simply  assails  the  deductive  method 
for  an  exclusive  right  of  the  inductive.  This 
analytical  temper  and  inductive  spirit  makes  bold 
claims  in  a  materialistic  atmosphere,  but  is  in  a 
far  deeper  sense  than  is  usually  urged  against  it 
incapable  of  constructive  work.     Indeed!     "Die 


REVEALED  AUTHORITY  99 

Teile  habt  Ihr  in  die  Hand.     Fehlt  Ihnen  jedoch 
das  lebendige  Band." 

Prof.  Royce  in  an  able  discussion  on  the 
psychological  weakness  of  Pragmatism  shows 
convincingly  that  the  abuse  of  deductive  reason- 
ing and  the  syllogism  is  largely  due  to  misunder- 
standing of  its  nature,  and  overlooks  the  im- 
mense fecundity  in  life  of  the  syllogism.  Rela- 
tions will  continue  to  play  an  important  part  in 
Hfe.  Balfour  says:  "It  is  authority  rather  than 
reason  to  which  in  the  main  we  owe,  not  religion 
only,  but  ethics  and  politics,"  He  ridicules  the 
idea  of  a  community  of  which  the  members 
should  set  out  to  examine  deliberately  the 
grounds  on  which  their  moral,  religious,  and 
civic  life  rests.  This  is,  however,  what  people 
who  refuse  the  instruction  of  legal  and  religious 
codes,  practically  propose.  Not  even  in  exact 
science  does  the  learner  get  his  information  ex- 
clusively by  his  own  experience,  refusing  the  ex- 
perience of  others,  including  that  of  the  past. 
Those  who  refuse  assent  to  another  authority 
than  that  which  is  absolutely  final,  usuallj^  do 
not  admit  such  authority,  but  fall  in  with  fallible 
authorities.  They  recognize  at  least  the  desir- 
ability of  unconditioned  good  on  which  to  stake 
the  issues  of  our  life  in  small  and  great  things,  in 
the  wear  and  tear  of  daily  duties,  as  in  the  heroic 


100  AUTHORITY 

efforts  of  sacrifice.  Since  we  do  not — and  can- 
not— encompass  all  of  life's  experiences  in  our 
earthly  days,  it  is  well  to  see  life,  if  not  wholly, 
at  least  as  a  whole.  This  is  made  possible  by 
the  constant  incorporation  of  the  varied  experi- 
ences of  life  in  the  world's  civilization.  This 
civilization  becomes  ever  more  mingled,  fused, 
and  enriched  by  contributions  from  private  ex- 
periences molding  the  appropriated  material  of 
social  life.  Though  codified  experience,  law, 
dogma,  and  code  are  of  changing  material  in 
time,  yet  the  expression  of  the  Absolute  is  in 
them.  The  question  is,  how  do  we  stand  related 
to  this  world  of  experience?  Are  we  shutting 
ourselves  up  in  partial  views,  or  do  we  attempt 
to  take  in  the  fullness  of  complex  life  in  its  true 
proportions  ? 

It  is  significant  that,  though  philosophy  as 
a  discipline  is  not  in  favor,  there  is  a  demand 
for  "integration  of  studies,"  whereas  we  have 
had  heretofore  at  best  only  a  "correlation 
of  studies."  Anything  presents  every  kind  of 
problem;  if  we  follow  specific  subjects  far 
enough,  we  become  involved  in  other  studies. 
Our  age  is  productive  of  studies  which  are  indi- 
cated by  the  coupling  of  branches,  formerly 
always  pursued  in  separateness.  We  are  led 
from  the  particular  to  the  whole ;  in  the  study  of 
the  particular,  we  encounter  the  whole ;  we  travel 


REVEALED  AUTHORITY       101 

on  every  road  from  the  periphery  to  the  center. 
As  in  Goethe's  poem: 

"Willst  Du  ins  Unendliche  schreiten, 
Geh'  nur  im  Endlichen  nach  alien  Seiten ! 
Willst  Du  dich  am  Ganzen  erquicken, 
So  miiszt  Du  das  Ganze  im  Kleinsten  erblicken." 

or  again  in  his  paradox, 

"Was  ist  das  Allgemeine?     Der  einzelne  Fall. 
Was  ist  das  Besondere?     Millionen  Falle." 

This  temper  of  scientific  pursuit  compensates 
to  some  extent  for  the  lack  of  specific  philo- 
sophic discipline.  Flint  remarks,  in  the  Princeton 
Review,  1878:  "What  has  to  be  viewed  in  rela- 
tion to  primary  and  efficient,  and  ultimate  final 
causes,  are  the  results  of  all  sciences."  Andrew 
Seth  says:  "It  is  with  the  ultimate  synthesis  that 
philosophy  concerns  itself ;  it  has  to  show  that  the 
subject  matter  which  we  are  dealing  with  in  de- 
tail really  is  a  whole,  consisting  of  articulated 
members."  The  small  philosopher,  the  detail 
and  retail  student  of  manual  and  of  text  book, 
has  created  a  separation  between  the  different 
branches  of  study  that  threatens  seriously  the 
harmonious  conception  of  life.  E.  Halevy  gives 
a  gloomy  outlook  in  his  report  on  philosophy  in 


102  AUTHORITY 

Germany    in    Revue    Internationale    de    Ven- 
seignement,  1896. 

"No  philosophic  spirit  presides  any  more  over  the 
work  in  the  universities.  The  result  is  that  through 
the  lack  of  philosophic  discipline,  they  have  fallen  vic- 
tims to  a  nationalistic  and  socialistic  political  economy. 
Practical  materialism,  whose  highest  form  is  "National- 
oekonomie,"  flourishes  in  the  chairs  of  the  universities, 
laboratories  of  collectivism.  With  the  students  of  the 
German  universities  one  feels  sadly  the  lack  of  a  pre- 
liminary philosophic  training  in  the  secondary  schools." 

It  is  not  strange  that  not  only  Wundt, 
Eucken,  Ziegler,  Kapper  and  Paulsen,  but 
Virchow  and  even  Haeckel  call  for  a  revival  of 
the  philosophic  spirit,  which  shall  unify  and 
articulate  the  separate  branches  of  learning. 
This,  in  order  that,  in  spite  of  the  study  of 
manuals  and  specialities,  the  student  may  cre- 
ate a  harmonious,  consistent  world-view,  instead 
of  staring  ignorantly  at  half-perceived  problems 
which  needs  must  arise  behind  the  mass  of  facts. 
For,  however  grouped,  they  will  come  to  the  in- 
dividual observer  with  the  insistent  demand  as  to 
their  purport;  "what,"  "whence,"  "whither."  It 
is  the  old,  old  problem  of  reconciling  time  and 
eternity,  the  many  and  the  one,  the  changeable 
and  the  changeless,  the  persistent  quest  of  the 
mind.     The  intellect  may  not  solve  it,  but  faith 


REVEALED  AUTHORITY        103 

sees  the  Eternal  in  fullness,  the  One  in  the  many, 
the  Changeless  in  the  changing,  the  Absolute  in 
the  relative.  Such  authority  is  not  discovered, 
not  arrived  at  by  long  disquisition.  We  were 
graciously  placed  in  the  midst  of  the  Absolute 
Ideal,  dissolving  all  legal  questions  or  vacilla- 
tions by  the  assurance,  "I  am  the  Way,  the 
Truth,  and  the  Life."  In  the  midst  of  disin- 
tegrating, unmoral  legalism,  which  becomes 
skeptical  of  its  sanctions,  we  confidently  appeal 
to  this  revelation  of  Absolute  Truth,  as  once  de- 
livered unto  the  saints,  and  over  which  the 
church  stands  guardian ! 


PART  II 

METAPHYSICAL    AND 
THEOLOGICAL   ASPECT 


CHAPTER  XI 

INDIVIDUALISM  AND  LEGALISM 

The  inquiry  how  to  reconcile  the  strictly  per- 
sonal, individual  life-elements  with  the  claims 
to  authority  of  those  universal  elements  incor- 
porated in  tradition,  in  social  institutions,  in 
written  and  unwritten  law,  is  in  order  in 
an  age  of  individual  assertions  and  claims, 
of  disruption  of  systems,  of  cries  of  "no  dog- 
mas," of  subjectivity,  of  pragmatism,  of  "Um- 
wertung  aller  Werte,"  of  the  disintegration 
of  all  things  wliich  claim  binding  authority  save 
that  of  the  ego;  in  an  age  which,  disregarding 
the  old  New  England  consideration  of  all  things 
"with  reference  to  eternity,"  has  come  to  sug- 
gest, at  least  professedly,  all  things  to  the  final 
judgment  of  the  self-important  ego;  in  an  age 
of  individual  pretensions  which  clamor  loudly 
against  the  impotent,  wornout,  false,  mystical, 
hundredfold-cursed  superstitions  of  former  days 
that  cumber  the  ground  over  which  progress  is 
to  march  on  to  higher  and  better  things.  In 
such  an  age  it  must  be  worth  our  while  to  re- 
flect on  the  situation,  to  find  out  whether  indi- 
vidual sovereignty,  personal  integrity,  cannot  be 

107 


108  AUTHORITY 

maintained  together  with  the  authority  of  incor- 
porate law. 

This  would  bring,  if  not  a  solution,  at  least  a 
reconciliation  in  the  sense  of  Montesquieu's 
definition  of  liberty  as  "the  freedom  to  do  what 
the  law  permits"  (Esprit  des  Lois,  Bk.  II,  ch. 
3).  This  view  is  indicated  also  in  the  title  of 
Sterrett's  recent  book  "The  Freedom  of  Au- 
thority," which  attempts  reconciliation  rather 
than  solution.  Lavaleye  inchnes  to  the  side  of 
authority  when  he  thus  defines  liberty: 

"La  liberte  est  le  pouvoir  de  faire  tout  de  qui 
n'est  pas  contraire  au  droit,  en  pratique  tant  ce 
qui  n'est  pas  contraire  aux  lois."  (Le  Gouvern- 
ement  dans  la  democratic,  p.  131.) 

On  either  side,  strong  claims  are  made;  in  be- 
half of  legal  authority  as  well  as  for  individual 
rights,  though  the  temper  and  tenor  of  our  age 
favor  the  individualistic  interpretation  of  life. 

In  a  valuable  article  of  the  Yale  Review  of 
February,  1907,  by  Professor  Garner,  of  IIH- 
nois  University,  it  is  stated  that  the  legislative 
guarantee  for  individual  liberty  is  a  compara- 
tively late  appearance.  Along  with  attention  to 
the  individual  goes,  however,  "the  tendency 
since  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
among  the  states  of  the  civilized  world,  to  push 
the  lines  of  government  farther  into  the  field 
which   the    individual   under   the    former    con- 


INDIVIDUALISM  109 

ditions  would  have  a  right  to  claim  as  be- 
longing to  liberty."  This  theme  is  ably 
treated  in  a  recent  inaugural  address  by  Pro- 
fessor H.  Krabbe,  of  Leyden  University;  "De 
idee  der  persoonlykheid  in  de  staatsleer." 

Especially  is  individualism  strong  in  our  Re- 
pubhc,  founded  under  the  spirit  of  revolutionary 
ideas,  through  sudden  break  of  historic  relations 
practically  without  tradition,  with  much  of  that 
"assertive  democracy"  which  will  recognize  no 
superiors,  where  the  citizen  is  possessed  of  a 
spirit. 

"That  bids  him  flout  the  law  he  makes, 
That  bids  him  make  the  law  he  flouts." 

Morality  and  religion  are  of  all  things  asserted 
to  be  primarily  personal,  individual  concerns, 
"Privatsache."  And  yet,  it  is  exactly  in  this 
sphere  that  legalism  is  most  often  complained  of 
as  enlisted  in  the  suppression  of  the  individual 
Hfe  by  the  majority-rule.  Legalism,  with  its 
outward  dictates,  has  at  all  times  encroached 
upon  the  domain  of  ethical  and  religious  life, 
though — as  Maurice  remarks — the  conscience 
is  intimately  bound  up  with  the  "I."  If  codi- 
fied standards  become  rules  for  individual  Hfe, 
appearances  come  to  play  a  large  part  in  life. 
Legalism  has  a  bad  flavor,  especially  because 
of  those  consistent,  law-abiding  moralists  and  re- 
ligionists, the  pharisees. 


110  AUTHORITY 

The  remarkable  development  of  tliis  legalistic 
religion  is  finely  portrayed  in  Schiirer's 
"Geschichte  des  Jiidischen  Volkes  in  Zeitalter 
Jesu  Christi."  ( See  chapter  wliich  treats,  "Life 
under  the  Law.") 

On  the  other  hand,  the  proclamation  of  the 
utter  independence  of  the  individual,  in  his  free- 
dom from  all  restraint,  is  meeting  with  opposi- 
tion. Nietzsche,  the  gifted  disclaimer  of  all 
bonds  and  laws,  has  certainly  given  a  shocking 
picture  in  the  unlimited,  individual  pretension 
of  his  "Herrenmoral." 

( See  Jenseits  von  Gut,  und  Bose.  Nietzsche's 
Werke.     Band  VII.) 

The  movement  for  a  return  to  nature  and  the 
individualism  of  the  "Sturm  und  Drang"  period 
ran  its  course  without  much  approval.  Rous- 
seau's prize  essay  on  the  question:  "Have  the  Sci- 
ences Contributed  to  Purify  or  to  Corrupt  the 
Morality  of  Mankind?"  aimed  to  establish  the  lat- 
ter point  with  more  passion  and  eloquence  than 
calm  reasoning.  After  the  appearance  of  many 
treatises  on  the  limitation  of  the  authority  of  the 
law  and  of  the  state,  have  come  discussions  as  to 
the  "limits  of  individual  liberty." 

Montague's  "Limits  of  Individual  Liberty," 
Lacy's  "Liberty  and  Law,"  and  Ritchie's  "Princi- 
ples of  State  Interference"  are  fruitful  discus- 
sions in  this  field.     J.  S.  Mill,  in  his  famous 


INDIVIDUALISM  111 

treatise,  feels  that  individual  liberty  must  be 
limited  to  actions  of  a  "self-regarding  class," 
however  difficult  they  are  to  define. 

Schiller,  in  a  distich  on  the  Werther-like 
sceptic  of  passion,  who  aims  at  the  realization  of 
unlimited  autonomy  of  the  inborn  "I,"  without 
any  outward  restraints  whatever,  characterized 
fitly  its  prototype :  "For  every  character  has  the 
right  of  existence;  only  inconsistency  is  not  al- 
lowed." "Denn  Recht  hat  jeder  Character,  es 
giebt  kein  Unrecht  als  der  Widerspruch." 

Rousseau,  declaring  the  individual  a  sovereign 
law  unto  himself,  does  not  allow  any  supposed 
submission  of  personal  interest  to  the  general 
welfare  of  mankind.  His  motto  is:  "The  indi- 
vidual above  society."  The  regulations  of  so- 
ciety are  to  be  burst  asunder,  and  an  abrupt  re- 
turn to  nature  is  proclaimed  as  the  cure  for  all 
evils.  Such  a  naive  conception  of  individualism 
makes  him  ignore  the  historic  development  of 
society  and  raise  the  cry  to  repeal  the  "social 
contract."  This  anarchistic  self-rule,  however, 
has  likewise  been  turned  to  ridicule  and  held  up 
for  opprobrium.  "Anarchy  is  the  permanent 
liberty  of  change,  it  is  the  elevation  of  change 
into  law  as  need  or  caprice  will  have  it,"  is  the 
definition  given  in  an  anarchistic  periodical. 
Or,  as  someone  has  said,  "Anarchism  is  the  acute 
outbreak  of  individualism." 


112  AUTHORITY 

In  learning  to  understand  both  view-points, 
the  one  desiring  to  regulate  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual by  an  expressed,  outward  authority  or 
law,  the  other  claiming  for  the  individual  au- 
tonomy on  the  ground  of  individual  sovereignty, 
we  find  a  common  ground  on  which  to  meet  the 
problems  involved  in  the  conflict.  For  where 
conflicts  rage,  problems  are  involved.  Instead 
of  arguing,  therefore,  one  case  at  the  cost  of  the 
other,  we  shall  attempt  a  solution  of  the  difficulty 
by  a  close  interpretation  of  each  view,  endeavor- 
ing to  find  a  universal  element  in  the  individual 
and  an  individual  element  in  the  universal.  If 
legalism  be  the  expression  in  society  of  a  multi- 
ple individual  experience,  made  regulative 
for  the  individual,  we  shall  need  to  inquire  into 
the  organic  relation  between  the  two  elements, 
viz.,  the  personal  equation  and  the  larger  experi- 
ence of  racial  wisdom,  which  assumes  the  right  of 
regulative  law  over  the  single  life  in  its  moral 
and  religious  functions.  In  the  analysis  of  this 
question,  light  may  be  thrown  on  the  nature  of 
legalism.  Legalism  functions  instrumentally  in 
the  moral  life  of  man.  Accumulated,  congealed 
morality,  objectified  deposits  from  most  vari- 
egated single  sources,  it  is  the  historic  object- 
lesson  by  which  man  learns  to  discern  the  Au- 
thority of  all  authority. 


CHAPTER  XII 
SABATIER'S   VIEW   OF  AUTHORITY 

In  the  recognition  of  the  forms  of  authority 
the  exercise  of  faith  is  involved.  However 
reasonable,  however  natural,  however  inevitable, 
therefore,  the  recognition  of  the  forms  of  au- 
thority may  be,  reason  can  never  render  an  ex- 
haustive account  of  life's  "grammar  of  assent." 
Sabatier  in  his  able  discussion,  "Religions  of 
Authority,"  assumes  that  this  can  be  done.  But 
he  can  do  this  only  because  his  final  authority  is 
humanity,  the  last  sanction  of  morality  and  re- 
ligion being  found  in  humanity,  the  source  from 
which  it  springs,  and  its  final  aim.  This  view 
is  characteristic  of  France.  It  is  Comte's  cult 
of  humanity  re\dved  in  a  disguised  form.  And 
this  is  the  fatal  fault  under  which  this  valuable 
treatise  labors.  For  Sabatier  is  right  in  not 
recognizing  on  such  a  presupposition  any  final 
or  absolute  authority.  There  is  no  absolute  and 
final  authority  when  we  do  not  touch  somehow 
in  its  forms  the  Absolute  from  which  all  au- 
thority is  derived.  When  the  ontological  impli- 
cations of  the  moral  and  religious  life  are  dis- 
carded, the  rejection  of  the  metaphysical  aspect 

113 


114  AUTHORITY 

of  religion  necessarily  follows.  This  position 
undermines  religion  by  disowning  the  real,  ob- 
jective authority  lying  back  of  all  faith.  Saba- 
tier  therefore  always  remains  in  the  sphere  of  hu- 
man or  derived  authority.  He  expresses  him- 
self in  his  Introduction  as  follows : 

"Authority  is  a  necessary  function  of  the  species,  and 
for  very  self-preservation  it  watches  over  that  offspring 
in  whom  its  life  is  prolonged.  .  .  .  Social  au- 
thority and  individual  autonomy  are  not  more  hostile, 
and  can  no  more  legitimately  be  opposed  to  one  another, 
than  the  final  destiny  of  man  and  of  humanity.  And 
yet  authority  is  never  other  than  a  power  of  fact. 
This  is  to  say  that  it  cannot  be  the  philosophic  explana- 
tion nor  the  ultimate  reason  of  anything. 
Whether  willingly  or  unwillingly,  authority  must  own 
the  control  of  reason.  .  .  .  An  established  au- 
thority, however  great  its  antiquity  or  its  power,  never 
carries  its  justification  in  itself." 

This  is  exactly  where  Sabatier's  and  all  ration- 
alistic explanations  of  faith  are  at  fault.  They 
rest  on  a  false  psychology  of  faith.  Authority 
is  power  of  fact,  and  never  owns  the  control  of 
reason.  Though  reason  functions  in  the  giving 
of  assent,  authority  carries  its  own  justification 
for  the  person  who  recognizes  it. 

Indeed  no  authority  is  legitimate  which  relates 
to  our  minds  so  as  to  stultify  or  bar  the  exercise 


SABATIER  ON  AUTHORITY      115 

of  reason.  Though  reason  does  not  create  truth, 
it  always  weighs,  assimilates  and  applies  the  data 
which  experience  places  before  its  consideration. 
Butler  well  said  in  his  "Analogy":  "Reason  is  the 
only  faculty  we  have  wherewith  to  judge  con- 
cerning anything,  even  revelation  itself." 
When  Reville  says  that  in  accepting  authority 
we  do  so  on  grounds  of  reason,  so  that  it  is  the 
adhesion  of  our  mind  that  gives  authority  its 
xveight,  he  identifies  the  mind's  assent  to  author- 
ity's claim  to  be  valid  with  the  establishing  of 
that  authority.  As  Dr.  Francis  J.  Hall  observes 
in  "Authority,  Ecclesiastical  and  Biblical":  "It  is 
because  authority  is  valid  prior  to  our  reasoning 
that  it  is  discovered  to  be  credible  by  reason ;  and 
it  is  this  prior  validity  that  reason  discovers,  thus 
establishing  the  rationality  of  our  dependence 
upon  authority.  Authority  presents  truth  to 
the  mind,  and  does  so  none  the  less  really  whether 
it  is  rightly  understood  or  not" ;  or  even,  we  may 
add,  rejected.  The  attitude  towards  authority 
is  not  to  believe  blindly,  or  at  command  as  is 
sometimes  mistakenly  and  incongruously  argued, 
but  rather  to  make  an  intelligent  use  of  the  most 
trustworthy  means  available  for  extending  the 
range  of  our  knowledge.  In  this  function  veri- 
fication has  a  larger  meaning  than  the  cure  of 
doubt.  Rather  does  it  enrich  the  truths  already 
accepted.     For,  as  Sir  William  Hamilton  says: 


116  AUTHORITY 

"The  original  data  of  reason  do  not  rest  upon 
reason,  but  are  necessarily  accepted  by  reason  on 
the  authority  of  what  is  beyond  itself.  These 
data  are,  therefore,  in  rigid  propriety,  beliefs  or 
trusts."  It  is  an  unfortunate  circumstance  that 
against  the  authority  of  historic  Christianity 
always  is  asserted  that  it  is  at  variance  with 
reason.  Christian  dogmatism  is  an  emphasis  on 
truth,  and  such  a  mental  attitude  in  regard  to 
truth  should  never  be  regarded  as  an  enemy  to 
intellectual  freedom.  Chesterton,  the  master  of 
paradox,  expresses  this  well  in  the  concluding  re- 
marks on  "Importance  of  Orthodoxy":  "The  vice 
of  the  modern  notion  of  mental  progress  is  that 
it  is  always  something  concerned  with  the  break- 
ing of  bonds,  the  effacing  of  boundaries,  the  cast- 
ing away  of  dogmas.  But  if  there  be  such  a 
thing  as  mental  growth,  it  must  mean  the  growth 
into  more  and  more  definite  convictions,  into 
more  and  more  dogmas.  The  human  brain  is  a 
machine  for  coming  to  conclusions;  if  it  cannot 
come  to  conclusions  it  is  rusty.  When  we  hear 
of  a  man  too  clever  to  believe,  we  are  hearing  of 
something  having  almost  the  character  of  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms.  It  is  like  hearing  of  a  nail 
that  was  too  good  to  hold  down  a  carpet;  or  a 
bolt  that  was  too  strong  to  keep  a  door  shut. 
.  .  .  If  then,  I  repeat,  there  is  to  be  mental 
advance,  it  must  be  mental  advance  in  the  con- 


SABATIER  ON  AUTHORITY       117 

struction  of  a  definite  pliilosopliy  of  life.  And 
that  philosophy  of  life  must  be  right  and  the 
other  philosophies  wrong."  (P.  283  if. 
"Heretics,"  Chapter  xx.)  Moberly  rightly  ob- 
serves in  "Lux  Mundi,"  pp.  222  and  223:  "There 
is  no  proper  antithesis  between  believing  in 
deference  to  authority,  and  believing  in  defer- 
ence to  reason,  unless  it  be  understood  that  the 
authority  believed  in  was  accepted  at  first  as  au- 
thority without  reason,  or  maintained  in  spite  of 
the  subsequent  refusal  of  reason  to  give  con- 
firmatory witness  to  its  assertions."  Neither 
should  it  be  represented  that  grace  subverts  our 
reason  or  replaces  it,  rather  is  the  gift  of  grace, 
an  endowment  of  our  reason,  a  supernatural  as- 
sistance which  clarifies  reason  without  altering  or 
subverting  its  laws.  In  conversion  with  the 
affected  will  and  purified  emotions  com.es  also 
as  the  work  of  grace  the  reason  enriched  from  its 
creative  source,  to  assimilate  it  to  its  perfect 
archetype.  Another  circumstance  which  has 
given  cause  to  much  confusion  in  regard  to  au- 
thority is  referred  to  by  Dr.  Hall  in  liis  work  on 
Authority,  where  he  says:  "Absolute  trust- 
worthiness of  an  authority  is  one  thing,  the  de- 
gree of  subjective  certainty  which  can  be  gained 
in  relation  to  its  claim  and  teaching  is  another. 
We  may  not  confuse  infallible  authority  with  in- 
fallible guidance,  for  the   success  of  guidance 


118  AUTHORITY 

depends  on  subjective  conditions  in  individual 
and  fallible  men.  The  certainty  of  faith  may  be 
so  full  as  to  exclude  doubt;  but  in  human  beings 
both  certainty  and  doubt  are  subjective  qualities 
of  fallible  understanding."  Significant  in  this 
regard  is  the  conclusion  of  the  Vth  article  of  the 
Westminster  Confession  of  Faith:  "Notwith- 
standing, our  full  persuasion  and  assurance  of 
the  infallible  truth,  and  divine  authority  thereof, 
is  from  the  inward  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit, 
bearing  witness  by  and  with  the  word  in  our 
hearts." 

Now,  as  Sabatier  goes  on  to  say: 

"Being  essentially  progressive,  and  far  removed 
from  the  state  of  perfection,  neither  authority  nor  au- 
tonomy may  be  posited  as  absolute.  .  .  .  Au- 
thority, in  its  true  conception,  is  and  can  be  no  other 
than  relative.  .  .  .  This  theory  of  the  national 
genesis  and  social  function  of  authority  will  easily  be 
granted  for  the  ordinary  course  of  human  things  in 
general.  .  .  .  But  when  the  question  is  of  religion, 
men  stop  and  protest." 

Sabatier  fails  to  understand  this  protest,  be- 
cause all  objects  of  faith  must  needs  become 
for  him  merely  mediating  forms,  designed  as 
method.  Intrinsic,  real  authority  does  not  ob- 
tain in  this  sublunary  world.  He  will  not  abide 
in  the  absolute  authority  which  faith  proclaims. 
Truly,  the  question  is  not  whetherl  the  pope  is  in- 


SABATIER  ON  AUTHORITY      119 

fallible,  but  whether  he  must  be  infallible.  But 
the  latter  proposition  does  not  get  a  hearing  from 
Sabatier.  Behind  and  beyond  all  sovereignty  of 
fact,  rises  for  him  a  sovereignty  of  right ;  and  on 
the  strength  of  this  he  protests  against  the  exer- 
cise of  faith,  disallowing  authority  to  any  and  all 
forms  of  authority.  Yet,  strangely  inconsistent, 
this,  his  last  appeal  and  final  authority  to  deny 
any  and  all  its  forms,  is  proclaimed  relative.  He 
does  not  discern  in  the  manifestations  of  truth, 
the  Truth  itself.  For  Sabatier,  the  immanent 
does  not  involve  the  transcendent.  Metaphysics 
is  professedly  disowned.  He  fails  to  realize  the 
import  of  a  passage  like  Hebrews  xi.  3. 
"Through  faith  we  understand  that  the  worlds 
were  framed  by  the  word  of  God,  so  that  things 
which  are  seen  were  not  made  of  things  which  do 
appear";  or  of  Romans  i.  20.  "For  the  invisi- 
ble things  of  him  from  the  creation  of  the  world 
are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things 
that  are  made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  God- 
head." On  Scripture  authority,  therefore,  it 
would  appear  that  though  truth  is  neither  of 
man,  nor  by  man,  it  is  yet  for  man,  here  and 
everywhere,  and  at  all  times.  This  argument,  of 
course,  applies  only  to  those  who  admit  the  au- 
thority of  the  Bible.  Yet,  let  me  quote  in  this 
connection  the  admirable  words  of  Professor  An- 
drew Seth: 


120  AUTHORITY 

"Rightly  agnostic  though  we  are  regarding  the  na- 
ture of  the  Absolute  as  such,  no  shadow  of  doubt  need 
fall  on  the  truth  of  our  experience  as  a  true  revelation 
of  the  Absolute  for  us.  Hegel  was  right  in  seeking 
the  Absolute  with  inexperience  and  finding  it,  too ;  for 
certainly  we  can  neither  seek  it  nor  find  it  anywhere 
else.  The  truth  is  hardly  likely  to  be  the  final  truth; 
it  may  be  taken  up  and  superseded  in  a  wider  and 
fuller  truth.  And  in  this  way  we  might  pass,  in  suc- 
cessive cycles  of  finite  existence,  from  sphere  to  sphere 
of  experience,  from  orb  to  orb  of  truth;  and  even  the 
highest  would  still  remain  a  finite  truth,  and  fall  in- 
finitely short  of  the  truth  of  God.  But  such  a  doctrine 
of  relativity  in  no  way  invalidates  the  truth  of  revela- 
tion at  any  given  stage.  The  fact  that  the  truth  I 
reach  is  the  truth  for  me,  does  not  make  it  on  that 
account  less  true.  It  is  true,  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  if 
my  experience  can  carry  me  no  further,  I  am  justified 
in  treating  it  as  ultimate  until  it  is  superseded.  Should 
it  ever  be  superseded,  I  shall  then  see  both  how  it  is 
modified  by  being  comprehended  in  a  higher  truth,  and 
also  how  it,  and  no  other  statement  of  the  truth,  could 
have  been  true  at  my  former  standpoint.  But  before 
that  higher  standpoint  is  reached,  to  seek  to  discredit 
our  present  insight  by  the  general  reflection  that  its 
truth  is  partial  and  requires  correction,  is  a  perfectly 
empty  truth,  which  in  its  bearing  upon  human  life,  must 
also  certainly  have  the  effect  of  an  untruth." 

In  the  same  essay  Professor  Seth  emphatically 
declares : 


SABATIER  ON  AUTHORITY       121 

"God  is  revealed  to  us  alike  in  the  face  of  nature  and 
in  our  own  self-conscious  life, — in  the  common  sense 
which  binds  mankind  together  and  in  the  ideals  which 
light  us  on  our  upward  path.  God  is  not  far  from 
any  one  of  us.  Within  us  and  around  us,  here  or  no- 
where, God  is  to  be  found." 

This,  indeed,  deserves  special  emphasis.  On 
the  one  hand,  knowledge  is  discounted  and  ren- 
dered unreliable,  because  it  is  treated  as  relative, 
inadequate  in  scope  and  in  nature,  whilst  even 
truth  itself  is  considered  a  fluctuating  total  of 
which  subjective  experiences  render  inadequate 
account  inasmuch  as  they  play  a  formative  part 
in  it.  The  extreme  tendency  in  this  direction 
leaves  us  in  subjectivism.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Absolute  is  lifted  out  of  the  reach  of  the 
finite,  following  out  Kant's  view  that  thoughts 
stand  between  us  and  things,  so  that  we  are  shut 
off  from  the  laiowledge  of  "things  in  them- 
selves." The  "negative  theologies"  represent 
this  line  of  thought,  so  ably  expounded  in  Brad- 
ley's work  "Appearance  and  Reality."  The 
Truth,  the  Absolute,  the  Infinite,  Reality,  is  con- 
ceived of  as  necessarily  unrelated  and  undiffer- 
entiated substance.  It  is  the  pure  Being  of  the 
Eleatic  school.  It  is  strongly  insisted  upon  by 
Dean  Mansel  in  his  Bampton  lectures  and  gave 
rise  to  the  well-known  controversy  with  Maurice. 
But  it  amounts  practically  to  the  same  thing. 


122  AUTHORITY 

whether  the  Absolute  be  elevated  into  such  pure 
Being  that  it  is  essentially  unrelated  and  undif- 
ferentiated, or  whether  it  is  held  to  have  no  in- 
dependent objective  existence.  In  either  case, 
or  even  in  Hegelian  panlogism  or  Spinozan  ma- 
terialism, the  Absolute  is  so  pure  an  abstraction 
that  truth  becomes  a  fiction.  It  is  therefore  a 
pointed  wit  which  called  Bradley's  book:  "The 
disappearance  of  Reality."  Maurice  is  right 
when  he  says  of  this  view  in  "Sequel  to  What  is 
Revelation"  (p.  10)  : 

"No  real  knowledge  of  the  Eternal  is  possible;  our 
conceptions  are  bounded  by  the  finite  and  the  visible. 
My  answer  is :  If  that  is  the  reason,  no  knowledge  of 
the  temporal  is  possible.  Slavery  to  our  conceptions,  as 
the  teacher  of  experimental  science  has  shown  us,  is 
the  hindrance  to  any  real,  solid  acquaintance  with  the 
mysteries  of  Nature.  When  we  try  to  bind  her  with  the 
forms  of  our  intellect,  she  will  give  us  no  faithful  an- 
swers ;  she  will  only  return  an  echo  to  our  voices.  Here 
is  another  proof  of  the  analogy  between  the  things 
sensible  and  spiritual.  The  same  enemy  blocks  the  en- 
trance into  both  regions.  The  determination  to  meas- 
ure all  things  by  ourselves,  to  bring  everything  under 
the  conditions  of  our  intellect,  makes  us  exiles  from  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  the  Kingdom  of  earth." 

Hegel's  system  may  teach  both  these  errors. 
For,  inasmuch  as  it  equates  the  Absolute  with 


SABATIER  ON  AUTHORITY       123 

human  experience,  it  leaves  no  room  for  the  in- 
dependence, the  transcendent  objectivity  of  the 
Absolute, — unless  it  be  at  the  expense  of  indi- 
vidual personahty,  in  which  case  that  which 
figures  as  such,  is  only  the  Absolute  as  subject 
of  thought.  Yet,  it  teaches  also  that  we  can 
only  determine  the  Absolute  by  predicates 
drawn  from  experience,  attributes  which  experi- 
ence indeed  furnishes  in  its  ever-increasing  rich 
and  various  forms.  These  characteristics  and 
determinations  are  legitimately  "thrown  out  to 
a  vast  Reality"  as  Matthew  Arnold  terms  it; — 
legitimately  thrown  out,  because  found  and 
recognized  in  the  forms  of  life  as  appearing  in 
the  things  that  are  seen. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HEGEL'S  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  STATE 
AND  AUTHORITY 

Hegel  assumed  the  knowing  of  the  coming 
into  existence  of  this  worldorder  and  plan,  but 
rendered  the  task  consequent  upon  his  bold  as- 
sumption easy  by  the  identifying  thought  and 
matter, — which  may  mean  metaphysical  idealism 
or  materialistic  pantheism,  but  in  either  case 
strict  monism.  A  world  is  treated  in  each  in- 
stance as  a  negligible  quantity. 

Hegel's  system  of  the  objective  mind  as  the 
receptacle  of  the  multifarious  individual  contri- 
butions, to  the  extent  that  these  are  intrinsic 
parts  of  the  social  structure,  leads  necessarily  to 
the  consideration  of  man  as  a  social  unit.  We 
are  not  only  fed  on  the  breasts  of  society,  but  are 
part  and  parcel  with  it  in  a  panlogistic  system. 
Over  against  Kant's  categorical  imperative,  He- 
gel's demand,  keeping  in  close  touch  with  the 
milieu  in  the  midst  of  which  the  individual  lives, 
enjoins:  "Observe  your  station  and  its  duties!" 
But  Hegel  solves  the  possible  discrepancy  be- 
tween the  subjective  and  objective  mind,  indi- 
vidual and  normative  law,  by  a  slighting  of  the 

124 


HEGEL  ON  AUTHORITY        125 

first,  and  by  an  unwarranted  assumption  in  be- 
half of  the  latter.  In  his  "Phenomenology  of 
the  Spirit"  he  reduces  the  many  to  the  one  on 
the  assumption  of  the  identity  of  thought  and 
being,  which  makes  the  laws  of  thought  the  law 
of  things.  The  well-known  watchword  is: 
"Whatever  is  real  is  rational  and  whatever  is 
rational  is  real."  He  says  in  his  "Logic" :  "Phi- 
losophy of  the  Absolute  is  a  representation  of 
God  as  He  was  in  his  eternal  essence  before  the 
creation  of  the  world  or  of  a  finite  spirit;  as  all 
things  were  made  by  Him,  and  He  is  before  all 
things  and  by  Him  all  things  consist."  The 
procedure  of  tracing  out  the  logical  processes  of 
his  "Immanent  Dialectic"  has  been  characterized 
as  a  generalizing  away  of  God's  personality  and 
of  human  personality  in  the  Absolute  Idea,  be- 
cause thought  is  stripped  of  individuality  and 
made  abstract  and  universal.  Schopenhauer 
said: 

"Hegel's  system  briefly  expressed  teaches  that 
the  world  is  a  crystallized  syllogism."  The  lead- 
ing theme,  briefly  stated,  is:  Sein  hat  Dasein. 
Being  has  existence  {eoc-sistere) ,  stands  out  in 
determination.  We  see  the  process  in  mind, 
think  God's  thoughts  after  Him.  All  predica- 
tion is  trichotomy.  The  judgment  A  is  B  con- 
tradicts A,  involving  as  it  does  that  A  is  no 
longer  A,  but  is  B.     A  new  synthesis  conse- 


126  AUTHORITY 

quently  is  involved.  Thus  the  great  march  of 
Hegel's  Pure  Being  or  Absolute  in  its  self- 
realization  is  pregnant  with  all  the  world's  con- 
tent and  destiny.  Hegel  thus  naturally  em- 
phasized the  immanence  of  God.  In  this  con- 
nection, his  exposition  of  cause  and  effect  is 
worthy  of  notice,  as  well  as  his  insistence, — con- 
trary to  the  attempts  of  naturalistic  theories — 
that  a  developing  series  is  to  be  understood  in  its 
highest  term,  for  development  does  not  mean  ad- 
dition. He  says  in  his  "Logic,"  "God  is  the  abso- 
lute Person,  as  self-conscious,  he  is  not  the  end 
of  an  evolution,  but  all  things  created  find  their 
reality  in  Him."  (Wallace's  translation,  pp.  89- 
91.)  Caird  is  therefore  correct  when  he  says 
that  "the  advance  from  mere  being  is  a  deepen- 
ing of  being  in  itself  whereby  its  inner  nature  is 
laid  bare,  rather  than  an  issuing  of  the  more  per- 
fect from  the  less  perfect."     ("Hegel,"  p.  218.) 

Hegel  should  not  be  charged  with  explaining 
the  generation  of  God,  man,  and  nature  out  of 
pure  Being  which  equals  non-being.  He  rather 
catches  Pure  Being  in  the  world-process  on  its 
way  toward  self-realization.  Keying  the  proc- 
ess with  that  of  which  it  consists,  thought,  he 
seeks  to  trace  its  development.  On  this  account 
the  terms  "abstract"  and  "concrete"  exchange 
meanings  with  Hegel. 

This  short  sketch  will  suffice  to  show  the  bear- 


HEGEL  ON  AUTHORITY        127 

ing  of  Hegel's  main  position  on  the  subject  of 
authority.  Professor  Dyde  of  Queen's  College, 
who  has  given  us  an  excellent  translation  of  He- 
gel's "Rechtslehre,"  remarks : 

"Since  Hegel  treats  in  the  'Philosophy  of  Right'  of 
an  essential  stage  in  the  evolution  of  spirit,  whose  whole 
nature  is  unfolded  scene  by  scene  in  the  'Encyclopedia,' 
it  is  not  accurate  to  speak  of  Hegel's  ethical  principles 
as  based  upon  his  logic.  The  more  concrete  categories 
of  the  'Philosophy  of  Right'  are  related  each  to  the 
next  in  the  same  way  as  are  the  more  abstract  cate- 
gories treated  in  the  Logic.  But  the  relation  of  the 
ethics  to  the  logic  is  not  that  of  superstructure  to 
foundation  or  of  application  to  principle,  but  of  the 
more  concrete  to  the  less  concrete  stage  of  evolution. 
One  single  life  runs  through  the  whole  organism  of  the 
work." 

Dr.  Gans,  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Complete 
Edition  of  Hegel's  books,  also  remarks  that  He- 
gel's "Philosophy  of  Right  and  Doctrine  of  the 
State"  is  as  much  as  any  other  an  essential  part  of 
his  philosophy. 

The  transcendent  part  of  the  Absolute  is  not 
very  clear  in  Hegel's  system.  It  may  serve  to 
meet  Trendelenburg's  pointed  criticism  that  He- 
gel bridges  unwarrantably  the  chasm  between 
"pure  being"  and  "becoming."  To  endow  pure, 
undifferentiated  being  with  the  first  attribute  or 


128  AUTHORITY 

quality  in  order  to  start  it  on  its  process  of  self- 
realization,  requires  a  cause,  which  is  not  recog- 
nized in  the  system.  We  can  give  no  other 
meaning  to  Sterret's  statement  in  his  able  work, 
"Studies  in  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Religion," 
when  he  says: — "In  Hegel's  whole  Logic, 
which  contains  his  system  or  method  in  pure  sci- 
entific form  as  extending  to  all  his  philosophical 
views,  God  seems  to  me  to  be  immanent  in  the 
actuality  and  order  of  the  world,  and  transcen- 
dent as  its  efficient  cause."  Of  the  transcendent 
part  in  Hegel's  Absolute,  we  are  not  convinced 
by  seeing  "pure  Being"  narrowed  down  to  the 
ceaselessly  evolving  series  of  events  on  this 
planet,  where  everything  appears  only  as  a  "mo- 
ment in  the  process."  The  dogmas  of  the 
Church  appear  of  course  also  as  "moments  in  the 
process,"  and  become  mere  symbols  of  reality. 
But  for  this  "abbreviated  knowledge  of  faith" 
the  believer  insists  on  corresponding  reality. 
We  cannot  help  feeling  that  Hegel  at  the  end  of 
his  three  volumes  on  "Philosophy  of  Religion" 
has  but  increasingly  felt  this  disi-uption  between 
historic  Christianity  and  the  symbols  of  faith  of 
his  philosophic  speculation.  He  practically  de- 
spairs of  a  possible  solution  when  he  says  that 
it  is  not  the  immediate  affair  and  concern  of  phi- 
losophy, although  he  always  made  much  of  the 
theological    bearings    of    his    philosophy.     Dr. 


HEGEL  ON  AUTHORITY        129 

Marheineke  who  edited  Hegel's  "Philosophy  of 
Religion"  styles  it  "the  highest  bloom  of  Hegel's 
philosophy." 

Inasmuch  as  with  Hegel,  individual,  family, 
and  community  have  their  truth  and  ground  in 
the  state,  no  claims  of  the  individual  against  the 
state  are  admissible.  Fries  and  Krause,  who 
emphasized  individualism,  objected  that  Hegel 
made  "the  objective  mind"  the  absolute  criterion 
and  everything  subservient  to  it.  The  pivotal 
maxim,  "Whatever  is  real  is  rational,  and  what- 
ever is  rational  is  real,"  was  partially  construed, 
and  only  the  first  part  seized  upon  in  argument. 
Menzel  therefore  does  Hegel  here,  as  in  many 
other  respects,  scant  justice  when  he  remarks: — 
"The  notorious  proposition  of  Hegel,  'AH  that 
is  real  is  rational,'  is  made  use  of  to  show  that  the 
present  condition  of  things  is  absolutely  the  most 
rational,  and  that  it  is  not  merely  revolutionary, 
but  eminently  stupid,  foolish,  and  unphilosophi- 
cal  to  take  exceptions  to  it."  When  in  Hegel's 
system  individual  claims  of  selfhood  are  shat- 
tered before  the  sovereignty  of  the  state  and  its 
institutions,  and  the  notion  of  the  "divine  right 
of  kings"  stalks  around  again,  it  should  be  borne 
in  mind  in  fairness  to  Hegel  that  for  him  the 
sovereignty  of  the  state  is  actualized  in  the  liv- 
ing monarch  and  reconciled  with  the  privilege  of 
the  individual  citizen  who  obeys  only  the  laws  of 


130  AUTHORITY 

which  he  perceives  and  approves  the  ground.  In 
Hegel's  system,  the  individual  citizen  is  not  sup- 
posed to  be  at  variance  with  the  state.     He  says : 

"Epicurus,  it  is  said,  believed  that  the  world  should 
be  given  over  to  each  individual's  opinions  and  whims ; 
and  the  ethical  fabric  should  be  treated  in  the  same  way. 
By  this  old  wives'  concoction,  which  consists  in  found- 
ing upon  the  feelings  what  has  been  for  many  centuries 
the  labor  of  reason  and  understanding,  we  no  longer 
need  the  guidance  of  any  ruling  conception." 

Individualistic  schemes,  on  the  other  hand,  lie 
open  to  criticism  by  opposing  the  individual  and 
his  interests  to  the  interests  of  the  state.  It 
should  also  be  understood  that  where  Hegel  in- 
sists on  the  sovereignty  of  the  law,  of  the  state 
over  the  individual,  it  is  the  Idea  which  is  the 
norm  and  ideal  to  which  the  subject  is  to  be  sub- 
ject, and  without  which  he  is  not  a  proper  sub- 
ject. Unfortunately,  however,  the  Idea  remains 
impersonal,  in  despite  of  all  assertions  of  neo- 
Hegelians.  The  individual  citizen  does  not 
move  in  personal  relationship  with  this  absolute 
authority  of  the  state  which  he  is  to  obey.  It 
remains  outward  restraint,  legal  power  of  fact. 
Hegel  seems  to  recognize  this  fact  fully  in  re- 
taining Kant's  distinction  between  the  legal  and 
the  moral,  the  impersonal  law  subjecting  per- 
sons, and  impersonal  law  subjectified  by  persons. 


HEGEL  ON  AUTHORITY        131 

The  sphere  of  right  demanding  conformity  to 
law,  though  without  regard  to  the  individual  per- 
son, subjects  him  to  ethical  powers,  and  is  there- 
fore not  a  limitation  of  freedom  but  rather  its 
reality,  as  it  is  only  the  arbitrary  will  which  is 
limited.  That  such  a  profound  view  of  the  au- 
thority of  the  state  as  the  goal  of  all  existence 
should  demand  obedient  recognition  of  all,  need 
not  cause  surprise.  This  view  is  removed  by  a 
whole  diameter  from  the  popular  notion  of  a 
"government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and 
for  the  people,"  though  the  two  conceptions  ap- 
proach each  other  when  rightly  interpreted,  ex- 
cept that  Hegel's  governmental  view  with  its 
sovereignty  of  state  and  ruler  inclines  to  a  par- 
ental attitude,  whilst  democracy  as  voiced  by 
Lincoln  tends  to  stimulate  initiative.  Both  men 
are  typical  representatives  of  their  views. 

It  is  hardly  duly  appreciated  that  Hegel's 
views  strongly  counteracted  the  tendency  of  law- 
lessness of  the  period  of  "Sturm  und  Drang"  of 
which  "Wilhelm  Meister"  is  the  classic  expres- 
sion. They  exercised  a  wholesome  influence  on 
that  lawless  individualism  of  emotional  roman- 
ticism in  which  the  sentimental  gush  of  Rous- 
seau was  combined  with  the  bold  claims  of  Fichte 
for  individual  assertion  against  established  law 
and  order.  Hegel  lent  dignity  to  the  law  by 
conceiving  so  profoundly  of  the  sovereignty  of 


132  AUTHORITY 

the  state  as  to  vest  it  with  the  authority  of  the 
Absolute  Idea. 

Thus  the  law  is  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
individuals  or  political  group  (the  machine)  and 
lifted  over  and  above  all,  regulating  all  alike  so 
that  the  chief  executive  of  the  nation  is  as  much 
under  the  law  he  wields  as  the  meanest  citizen. 
To  break  this  law  is  treason  indeed!  It  is  like 
lifting  a  puny,  wanton  hand  against  the  very 
framework  of  God  Himself. 

As  all  governments  are  historic,  ethnic,  tradi- 
tional flowerings  of  the  idea  of  the  specific  na- 
tion, it  is  wholly  beside  the  mark  when  critics 
assert  that  Hegel  would  force  a  rigid,  hide- 
bound Prussian  bureaucracy  upon  a  nation  like 
ours, — plastic,  young,  and  new — meeting  occa- 
sions as  they  come,  and  rising  equal  to  deal  with 
them.  Of  course  we  do  not  always  deal  with  new 
situations  in  the  best  way,  but  we  are  making 
more  valuable  political  experiments  than  are 
possible  under  the  Hegelian  conception  of  law 
which  tends  to  bind  individual  initiative  under 
the  yoke  of  bureaucratic  routine.  Still  we  must 
remember  that  Hegel  thinks  that  every  un- 
sophisticated consciousness  stands  upon  the  con- 
viction that  the  rational  is  real,  and  conversely. 
From  this  circumstance  proceeds  the  view  that 
the  spiritual  universe  is  the  natural.  To  quote 
Hegel : 


HEGEL  ON  AUTHORITY        133 

"When  reflection,  feeling,  or  whatever  other  form  the 
subjective  consciousness  may  assume,  regards  the  pres- 
ent as  vanity,  and  thinks  itself  to  be  beyond  it  and 
wiser,  it  finds  itself  in  emptiness,  and,  as  it  has  actuality 
only  in  the  present,  it  is  vanity  throughout.  Against 
the  doctrine  that  the  idea  is  a  mere  idea,  figment  or 
opinion,  philosophy  preserves  the  more  profound  view 
that  nothing  is  real  except  the  idea.  Hence  arises  the 
eff'ort  to  recognize  in  the  temporal  and  transient  the 
substance,  which  is  immanent,  and  the  eternal,  which 
is  present.  The  rational  is  synonymous  with  the  idea, 
because  in  realizing  itself  it  passes  into  eternal  exist- 
ence. It  thus  appears  in  an  endless  wealth  of  forms, 
figures,  and  phenomena.  It  wraps  its  kernel  round 
with  a  robe  of  many  colors,  in  which  consciousness  finds 
itself  at  home.  Through  this  varied  husk,  the  con- 
ception first  of  all  penetrates  in  order  to  touch  the 
pulse,  and  then  feel  it  throbbing  in  its  external  mani- 
festations." 

The  critics  who  represent  Hegel  as  the  cham- 
pion of  the  baldest  conservatism  in  defense  of  all 
actual  conditions  whatever  they  be,  leave  out  of 
account  his  conception  that  all  rationality  of  the 
real  has  only  a  relative  and  partial  value.  Its 
value — though  never  lost — must  be  tran- 
scended, overcome,  and  make  room  for  another 
phase.  The  necessity  of  the  "moments  of  the 
process"  in  the  stage  of  development  of  pure 
thought  constitutes  lasting  truth  and  its  justify- 


184  AUTHORITY 

ing  value.  There  is  a  certain  ambiguity  in  He- 
gel's doctrine  according  as  one  approaches  the 
phases  of  development.  If  one  lays  hold  of  the 
viewpoint  that  all  our  institutions,  all  our  inheri- 
tance of  the  past,  all  the  tradition  of  former  days 
upon  which  we  now  stand  and  to  which  we  are 
vitally  related,  must  go  and  make  place  for  the 
better  things  to  come — JLe  meilleur  est  Vennemi 
du  bien — then  Hegel  may  be  regarded  as  the 
proclaimer  of  an  evolution  which  is  ever  urging 
the  progress  of  the  principles  that  throb  in  na- 
tional life  and  its  institutions.  And  truly  in 
Hegel's  system  there  is  nothing  to  offset  this, 
inasmuch  as  there  is  no  permanent  element  in 
the  change.  Josiah  Royce  might  well  exclaim 
"The  conception  of  the  eternity  of  the  forms  of 
things  is  historically  considered  by  far  the  most 
significant  opponent  that  the  philosophic  doctrine 
of  evolution  has  had  or  ever  can  have,"  especially 
when  the  changing  time-elements  are  interpreted 
in  materialistic  fashion.  This  interpretation  has 
been  put  upon  his  doctrine  by  the  left-wing  He- 
gelians, and  the  fact  that  they  were  the  most  pro- 
gressive in  politics  and  religion  is  sufficient  refu- 
tation of  the  charge  that  Hegel  advocated  the 
acme  of  conservatism.  He  was  conservative,  but 
his  system  does  not  necessarily  involve  it.  He- 
gel himself  emphasized  the  conservative  aspect 
of  his  system,  but  the  writings  of  Feuerbach, 


HEGEL  ON  AUTHORITY        135 

Bruno,  Baur,  Strauss,  and  Karl  Marx  show  that 
the  most  radical  progress  could  be  read  into  his 
system.  As  Professor  Bowen  has  well  said: — 
"The  baldest  infidelity  and  red-republicanism 
went  under  the  name  and  garb  of  Hegehan  phi- 
losophy." Although  this  point  has  been  a  much 
controverted  question  in  the  Hegelian  schools 
and  among  their  critics,  it  is  plain  that  those  are 
wrong  who  place  the  Hegelian  maxim,  "What- 
ever is  real  is  rational,"  alongside  of  Pope's  ver- 
sion, "Whatever  is  is  right,"  of  the  Leibnitzian 
optimism,  which  proclaims  tliis  the  best  of  the 
possible  worlds.  Pope's  "Essay  on  Man"  is  no 
more  admissible  in  Hegel's  system  than  is  the 
scathing  and  vulgar  satire  of  Voltaire's  "Can- 
dide,"  which  it  called  forth. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
AUTHORITY  AND  FACT 

We  should  accept  the  fact  that  objective  ex- 
istence is  known  in  our  experience,  not  only  from 
epistemological  considerations,  but  also  from  the 
admission  of  the  necessary  function  of  authority, 
unreservedly  made  by  those  who  yet  disclaim  the 
meaning  of  fact.  For  is  not  objective  authority 
the  mediating  agency  for  the  individual,  because 
it  constitutes  direct,  first-hand  witness  to  inde- 
pendent facts,  which  we  are  not  able  to  verify 
ourselves?  The  whole  function  of  authority 
falls  to  the  ground,  unless  it  implies  this  witness 
to  objective,  independent  fact.  Of  course,  this 
functional  authority  in  its  most  varied  forms,  to 
which  conscience  and  reason  make  their  appeal 
in  justification  of  belief,  relates  to  the  objective 
source  of  authority,  without  which  these  indi- 
vidual witnesses  would  not  constitute  authority. 

In  this  connection  we  may  call  attention  to 
the  essentially  unscientific  procedure  of  the 
present  Bible-critics  in  employing  the  narratives 
of  the  original,  direct  witnesses  to  Christ,  in  or- 
der to  "reconstruct"  a  Christ  and  a  Gospel  as 
they  conceive  of  them,  but  independent  of  the 

136 


I 


AUTHORITY  AND  FACT        137 

authority  of  the  Bible-stories.  One  can  readily 
understand  the  resulting  diversity  in  the  recon- 
struction and  appreciate  Kalthoif 's  remark  that 
every  school  in  modern  times  has  its  University- 
Christ.  Similarly  the  modern  theorists  of  this 
school,  in  spite  of  their  cry  "Back  to  Christ"  re- 
main from  the  nature  of  the  case  "standing  stiff 
in  the  stocks."  They  go  neither  back  nor  for- 
ward to  Christ,  but  contemplate  themselves  in 
Christ-images  projected  rather  than  found  in 
faith. 

Goethe's  sarcasm  comes  to  them  with  full 
force : 

"Wie  einer  ist,  so  ist  sein  Gott ; 
Darum  ward  Gott  so  oft  zu  Spott." 

It  is  again  Luther's  declaration:  "Machet  ihm 
jedermann  Zum  Gott,  darzu  ihm  sein  Herz 
trug." 

At  the  bottom  of  this  procedure  lurks  Feuer- 
bach's  bald  assertion,  contrasted  with  the  affirma- 
tion, of  Christian  faith:  "God  did  not  create  man 
in  His  image,  but  man  created  God  (or  Gods) 
in  his  image."  This  theory,  especially  regard- 
ing Christianity,  is  historically  false,  because  it 
reverses  the  true  causal  relation. 

Professor  G.  T.  Ladd  takes  up  this  view  in 
his  "Philosophy  of  Religion"  in  a  somewhat  con- 


138  AUTHORITY 

cessive  mood.  Accepting  the  statement  that 
"man  made  God  in  his  own  image,"  he  finds  the 
other  statement  that  "God  first  made  man  in  His 
image"  to  be  only  a  religious  interpretation  of 
the  first  {Vol.  I.  Ch.  xiv).  "God  himself,"  he 
says  in  another  place  (p.  146),  "as  at  first  the 
Ideal  of  power  and  majesty  and  afterwards  of 
justice,  truth,  and  spiritual  perfection,  is  the 
construct  of  the  quenchless  desire  and  growing 
aptitude  for  the  realization  of  the  Ideal."  I  am 
aware  that  Professor  Ladd's  ontological  con- 
sciousness strenuously  safeguards  at  least  the 
reality  of  the  truth  that  appears  in  historic  re- 
ligions, but  his  explanation  seems  rather  arbi- 
trary. 

Professor  Schmiedel  furnishes  another  typi- 
cal illustration  of  this  view  in  his  article  on  the 
"Resurrection"  in  the  "Encyclopedia  Biblica." 
After  arguing  with  much  elaborateness  and  abil- 
ity in  favor  of  the  vision  theory  he  says:  "The 
disciples  believed  they  saw  Jesus,  because  they 
were  already  persuaded  He  was  alive." 

Examples  might  be  multiplied  in  which  the 
decision  whether  Christ  made  Christianity  or 
Christianity  made  Christ  has  been  made  from 
theory,  rather  than  in  accordance  with  the  re- 
sults of  a  strictly  historical  method  of  investiga- 
tion. But  in  the  scientific  study  of  history,  as 
in  strict  legal  procedure,  original  witnesses  are 


AUTHORITY  AND  FACT        139 

not  easily  displaced  by  the  most  ingenious 
theory.  The  question  is  not  what  might  have 
been  the  case,  but  what  are  the  facts.  Truth  is 
our  first  concern, — truth  in  the  Old-English 
meaning  of  the  word  "treow"  which  is  "faithful- 
ness," or  "appeal  to  facts"  (cf.  the  German 
Treue,  Dutch  trouw) .  We  must  be  faithful  to 
facts.  Theories  and  explanations  are  subservi- 
ent and  secondary  to  fact.  They  are  mere  at- 
tempts to  explain  them.  But  facts  require 
recognition,  whether  we  are  able  to  explain  them 
or  not.  The  irreversible  facts  are  themselves  ex- 
planations as  passive  witnesses  in  service  of 
truth.     Magna  est  Veritas  et  praevalebit. 

The  nature  and  importance  of  original  au- 
thorities is  maintained  by  all  historians.  Pro- 
fessor E.  A.  Freeman,  in  his  "Methods  of  His- 
torical Study"  (Lectures  IV  and  V),  says: 

"The  kernel  of  all  sound  teaching  in  historical  mat- 
ters is  the  doctrine  that  no  historical  study  is  of  any 
value  which  does  not  take  in  a  knowledge  of  original 
authorities.  Let  no  one  mistake  this  saying,  as  if  I 
were  laying  down  a  rule  that  no  knowledge  of  any  his- 
torical matter  can  be  of  any  value  which  does  not  come 
straight  from  an  original  authority. 

"The  fact  is  that  Livy,  Plutarch,  and  a  crowd  of 
others,  though  they  are  not  original  authorities  in 
themselves,  are  original  authorities  to  us.  That  is  to 
say,  we  can  for  the  most  part  get  no  further  than  what 


140  AUTHORITY 

they  tell  us.  We  know  that  they  copied  earlier  writers ; 
we  often  know  what  earlier  writers  they  copied.  But 
those  earlier  writers  are  for  the  most  part  lost ;  to  us 
Livy  and  Plutarch  are  their  representatives.  For  a 
large  part  of  their  story  we  have  no  appeal  from  them 
except  either  to  internal  evidence  or  to  any  fragmentary 
authorities  of  other  kinds  that  may  be  left  to  us. 
There  is  no  counter-narrative. 

"If,  then,  we  are  to  define  original  authorities,  we 
might  perhaps  define  them  as  those  writers  from  whom 
we  have  no  appeal,  except  to  other  writers  of  the  same 
class. 

"We  must  remember  that  even  the  best  contemporary 
writer  is  commonly  a  primary  authority  for  a  part  only 
of  his  subject.  Though  living  at  the  time  of  which 
he  writes,  though  often  an  actor  in  the  scenes  of  which 
he  writes,  still  he  cannot  always  write  from  personal 
knowledge ;  he  cannot  have  seen  everything  with  his  own 
eyes ;  he  must  constantly  write  only  what  he  has  been 
told  by  others ;  only  he  is  able  to  judge  of  what  is  told 
him  by  others  in  a  way  that  a  later  writer  cannot  do. 
And  besides  his  narrative,  there  is  often  other  contem- 
porary evidence  which  for  some  purposes  may  be  of 
higher  authority  than  his  narrative.  The  text  of  a 
proclamation  or  a  treaty  is,  within  its  own  range,  of 
higher  authority  than  the  very  best  contemporary  nar- 
rative. I  say  within  its  own  range,  because  the  official 
document,  while  it  always  proves  a  great  deal,  does 
not  always  prove  everything. 

"The  later  writers  are  by  no  means  to  be  cast  aside ; 
it  is  often  very  important  to  see  how  they  looked  at 


AUTHORITY  AND  FACT        141 

the  events  of  earlier  times.  The  point  to  be  under- 
stood is  that  they  are  not  authorities,  that  they  are 
not  witnesses,  that  a  statement  made  by  a  contemporary 
gains  nothing  in  inherent  value  because  it  is  copied  over 
and  over  again  by  a  hundred  writers  who  are  not  con- 
temporaries. Whenever  a  man  at  any  date  has  spe- 
cial means  of  knowledge,  he  becomes  so  far  an  au- 
thority ;  a  local  writer  or  a  man  who  has  specially 
studied  some  particular  class  of  subjects  may  be  in  this 
sense  an  authority,  that  is  the  nearest  approach  to  an 
authority  that  we  can  get,  even  for  times  long  before 
his  own." 

In  literature  the  same  rule  applies.  Authori- 
ties are  the  standards  by  which  to  regulate,  but 
which,  after  the  testing  of  the  times,  cannot 
themselves  be  subjected  to  other  standards  in 
their  authoritative  element.  Sainte-Beuve,  in 
his  "Causeries  du  Lundi,"  gives  certain  defini- 
tions which  may  be  adduced  here  by  way  of  illus- 
tration : 

"A  classic  is,  according  to  the  ordinary  definition, 
an  author  who  is  already  established  in  the  admiration 
of  the  people  and  who  figures  as  authority  in  his  field. 
The  word  'classic'  appears  first  in  this  sense  with  the 
Romans.  With  them  not  all  the  citizens  of  the  differ- 
ent classes  were  called  'classic,'  but  only  those  of  the 
first  class  who  possessed  at  least  a  certain  fixed  income. 

"All  those  who  possessed  an  income  below  that  were 
designated  as  'infra  classem,'  below  the  class  par  ex- 
cellence.    Figuratively    the    word    'classicus'    is    found 


142  AUTHORITY 

used  by  Aulus  Gellius,  and  applied  to  authors ;  an  au- 
thor of  value  and  distinction,  'classicus  assiduusque 
scriptor,'  an  author  who  counts,  who  possesses  some- 
thing and  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  mass  of 
proletarians.  Such  an  expression,  therefore,  presup- 
poses an  age  sufficient  to  have  given  opportunity  for 
criticism  and  classification  in  literature. 

"The  idea  'classic'  implies  something  of  a  regular  con- 
sistent character  which  forms  a  whole  and  has  tradi- 
tion.    It  grows,  spreads,  yet  endures. 

"The  first  Dictionary  of  the  Academy  (1694)  defined 
a  classic  author  simply  as  an  ancient  author  very  much 
approved,  one  who  is  authority  in  the  subject-matter 
with  which  he  deals.  The  Dictionary  of  the  Academy 
of  1835  presses  this  definition  further  and  renders  it 
more  precise  and  specific.  It  defines  'classic  authors' 
as  those  who  have  become  models  in  any  languge.  In 
the  articles  which  follow  recur  continually  expressions 
such  as :  models,  established  rules  for  composition  and 
style,  strict  rules  for  art  to  which  one  must  conform." 


CHAPTER  XV 

BIBLE  AUTHORITY 

Subjectivism,  pragmatism,  and  pluralism,  as 
much  as  agnosticism,  logically  rule  authority  out 
of  court.  The  current  attempts  to  save  a  kind 
of  authority  for  the  Bible  by  those  who  refuse 
to  admit  its  objective  authority  are  interesting. 
At  the  best  they  simply  vest  Scripture  with  their 
own  endorsement,  holding  that  the  Bible  is  not  the 
Word  of  God,  but  that  the  word  of  God  is  in  the 
Bible.  The  authentication  of  the  Word  of  God, 
however,  is  left  to  the  individual.  Dr.  Forsyth, 
in  an  able  article  in  the  Contemporary  Review, 
advocates  the  view  that  the  Bible  as  such  is  not 
the  word  of  God,  but  derives  its  authority  from 
the  Word  of  God,  of  which  it  is  part.  This  con- 
ception is  not  unlike  the  view  of  the  authority  of 
the  Bible  held  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
in  which  the  church  is  set  over  the  Bible,  but  the 
Roman  view  retains  at  least  some  objective 
norm.  As  Cardinal  Gibbons  says  in  "The  Faith 
of  Our  Fathers":  "The  canonicity  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures  rests  solely  on  the  authority  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  which  proclaimed  them  in- 
spired."    Dr.  Forsyth,  on  the  other  hand,  de- 

143 


144  AUTHORITY 

rives  the  authority  of  the  Bible  from  its  function 
in  the  service  of  the  Gospel.  If  Dr.  Forsyth 
means  to  leave  any  intrinsic  authority  to  the 
Bible  in  its  necessary  relation  to  the  functioning 
of  the  gospel  among  men,  then  his  conception  of 
authority  is  at  fault.  For  authority  is  not  a  de- 
rived power,  beliind  which  those  to  whom  its 
appeal  is  made,  may  go. 

There  is  no  inquiry  more  momentous,  more 
fraught  with  influences  that  bear  directly 
upon  our  ethical  life  than  that  which  seeks  to 
place  before  us  in  authority  a  reliable,  regulative 
standard  for  conduct.  It  can  be  shown  from 
statistics  that  in  all  periods  of  unsettlement  and 
of  social  and  economic  transition,  the  ethical  life 
is  agitated  and  powerfully  affected.  Crime  in- 
creases proportionately  as  the  unsettled  condi- 
tion becomes  more  complete.  The  facts  observed 
make  it  evident  that,  where  the  restraints  of  au- 
thority are  less  felt,  they  exercise  less  influence. 
Is  this  restraining  influence  upon  the  will  the 
whole  content  of  the  concept  of  authority?  Or 
must  we  necessarily  raise  questions  regarding 
that  before  which  the  will  bows  in  submission? 
Evidently  this  latter  question  must  be  raised ;  for 
the  authority  can  not  be  entirely  of  the  indi- 
vidual who  bends  in  homage  before  the  dictates 
of  such  authority.  It  is  in  us,  but  not  of  us. 
Indeed,  "liberty  of  conscience"  itself  points  to  a 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  145 

"conscience  of  liberty."  And  this  would  mean 
that  we  are  mated  by  our  susceptibilities  with  an 
unestrangeable  witness  throughout  all  the  activi- 
ties of  life ;  matched  by  our  inner  nature  with  an 
outward  standard.  Thus  it  becomes  e\adent  that 
there  is  always  implied,  when  we  consider  au- 
thority, first  of  all  an  objective  reference.  Of 
course,  in  its  very  dictates  and  efficacy,  this  au- 
thority is  determined  and  conditioned  by  the 
ethical  nature  of  him  to  whom  its  decrees  are 
issued.  This  disposes  at  once  of  the  superficial 
remark  which  is  often  made  on  the  strength  of 
this  circumstance  f.  i.  by  Professor  Perry  in 
"The  Moral  Economy"  p.  34. 

"There  is  a  phrase,  'liberty  of  conscience,'  which  well 
expresses  the  modem  conception  of  moral  obligation. 
It  recognizes  that  duty  in  the  last  analysis  is  imposed 
upon  the  individual  neither  by  society  nor  even  by  God, 
but  by  himself;  that  there  is  no  authority  in  moral 
matters  more  ultimate  than  a  man's  own  rational  con- 
viction of  what  is  best." 

Precisely,  this  circumstance,  this  binding  obli- 
gation is  a  personal  expression  of  personal  re- 
sponsibility to  God  in  the  definite  social  forms 
and  specific  individual  experience.  Philosophi- 
cal inquiry  seeks  to  define  the  objective  nature 
of  authority.  After  authority  has  been  estab- 
lished, the  man  of  daily  doings  has  something  to 


146  AUTHORITY 

go  by,  if  he  can  only  rely  on  his  given  standard. 
This  practical  necessity  accounts  for  the  codi- 
fication of  the  various  and  rich  contents  of  the 
religious  and  ethical  life.  We  thus  find  always 
codes,  rules,  dogmas,  external  authorities.  Our 
very  sense  of  authority  is  their  guarantee. 

Where  more  is  at  stake  in  the  risks  of  life,  as 
in  the  religious  sphere,  the  guarantee  is  propor- 
tionately stronger.  In  this  light  we  may  see  the 
importance  of  a  subjective  belief  in  an  "in- 
fallible" church,  in  the  Bible  as  "the  perfect  rule 
of  faith  and  practice,"  in  Christ  as  "very  God  of 
very  God  and  very  man  of  very  man"  in  His  re- 
deeming work. 

Within  the  sphere  of  faith  the  creeds  are 
established,  and  the  guarantee  accepted  for  the 
personal  endorsement  of  belief,  but  the  skeptical 
inquiry  which  does  not  by  faith  lay  hold  of  these 
codes,  dogmas  and  securities  on  the  market  of 
life,  clamors  loudly  for  demonstration  of  their 
right  to  be  authoritative. 

The  place  assigned  to  faith  in  the  Bible  and 
by  Christianity  as  fundamental  and  supreme, 
underlying  and  conditioning  all  human  knowl- 
edge and  action  is  an  acknowledged  fact.  And 
if  faith  then  must  function  in  all  the  activities  of 
life,  then  the  only  question  is  which  form  it  takes, 
for  some  form  it  must  take.  We  therefore  raise 
the  question:  Are  the  objects  of  faith  adequate 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  147 

and  justified,  when  looked  at  without  the  eyes  of 
faith?  The  multitudes  require  demonstration 
from  the  "faithful" — i.  e.,  those  who  have  the 
faith — if  they  are  to  be  induced  to  stake  life's 
values  on  the  same  principles.  We  are  to  verify 
our  credal  formulations  and  beliefs  before  the 
men  of  the  world.  We  are  all  fighting  our 
battles  in  this  same  impartial  world.  God  is  no 
respecter  of  persons.  Will  the  world  yield  us 
the  best  by  conducting  life's  campaign  along  the 
plan  of  obedience  to  Christian  teachings  and  be- 
liefs. This  is  to  be  made  plain  to  the  world. 
Is  there  justification  in  suspense  of  assent  to  the 
old  Christian  authority.  Not  if  faith  is  an  essen- 
tial function  in  life  as  actually  lived.  In  life  we 
have  to  take  chances.  We,  free  moral  agents, 
act  in  God's  vast  domain  at  our  own  peril. 
A  valuation  of  conduct,  a  posteriori  by  others, 
does  not  concern  me  in  the  brunt  of  life's  battles, 
face  to  face  with  temptations.  I  must  decide 
now,  how  to  steer.  The  pilot  with  chart  and 
compass  must  be  brought  on  board  of  my  storm- 
tossed  hulk. 

Nor  is  the  proposal  that  one  should  wait  until 
the  facts  are  all  in,  resting  in  the  assurance 
that  the  results  will  vindicate  the  reasonableness 
of  the  faith,  any  more  satisfactory.  To  wait  till 
all  the  facts  are  in!  Can  the  plummet  of  my 
finite  intellect  fathom  the  depths  of  life's  ocean? 


148  AUTHORITY 

You  bid  me  to  suspend  judgment,  not  to  decide 
for  the  things  that  have  power  over  me.  I  must 
be  scientific  by  committing  myself  to  the  infin- 
itely vague  possibility,  as  over  against  the  con- 
crete, urgent  facts  that  are  upon  me.  Profes- 
sor James  has  shown  well,  in  his  "Will  to  Be- 
lieve," that  what  you  demand  is  a  psychological 
impossibility.  Suspension  of  assent  is  impos- 
sible, whatever  academic,  would-be  scientific  ac- 
curacy may  decide  in  its  theory. 

In  actual  life  there  are  no  dead  issues;  life  is 
replete  with  conflicts.  Life  is  a  battlefield;  I 
must  fight.  Therefore  only  hving  issues  have 
a  chance  of  being  taken  up.  They  are  those 
which  approach,  and  can  be  carried  into,  actual 
life. 

If  faith  is  the  surrender  to  an  acknowledged 
authority,  then  it  would  follow  that  authority  of 
some  sort  is  involved  in  the  conduct  of  life.  The 
pragmatic!  attitude  towards  life,  a  disguised  utili- 
tarianism without  approximate  guarantee  for 
my  actions  by  a  computation  of  results,  is 
either,  (1)  a  tremendously  vast  faith  in  the  ra- 
tionality of  the  universe,  matching  as  it  does, 
my  reason,  my  instincts,  my  all,  in  complete  har- 
mony with  all  about  me;  or  (2)  it  is  a  flat  re- 
fusal to  accept  authority  over,  and  restraint 
upon,  my  rebellious  nature. 

I  believe  it  is  the  latter.     For,  first,  conscience 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  149 

does  not  allow  us  to  say  that  our  natures  com- 
port so  well  with  the  world's  intrinsic  arrange- 
ment that  our  actions  upon  it  yield  us  its  essen- 
tial meaning.  We  are  out  of  joint  with  the 
Universe,  with  God.  The  feeling  of  sin  is  uni- 
versal. Secondly,  the  real  tendency  of  pragma- 
tism in  religion  is  too  clearly  manifest  to  leave 
us  in  doubt  as  to  the  fact  of  its  opposition  to  any 
and  all  doctrine. 

We  must  have  a  "working  faith,"  and  it  is 
ipso  facto  impossible  to  proceed  upon  anything 
with  a  principle  to  which  I  can  give  sanction  only 
after  having  seen  how  it  "does  work." 

(3)  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that 
irrespective  of  all  argumentation  or  rational 
proofs,  whether  logically  adequate  or  inadequate, 
the  Bible  still  presses  upon  all  men  the  old 
alternative  of  life  or  death  conditioned  on  imme- 
diate practical  surrender  to  its  requirements.  As 
Calvin  observes  in  his  "Institutes":  "Scripture, 
carrying  its  own  evidence  along  ^vith  it,  deigns 
not  to  submit  to  proofs  and  arguments,  but  owes 
the  full  conviction  with  wliich  we  ought  to  re- 
ceive it  to  the  testimony  of  the  spirit."  Or  in 
the  words  of  Athanasius:  "The  holy  and  divinely 
inspired  Scriptures  are  sufficient  of  themselves, 
aurapxeii;  for  the  declaration  of  truth." 

The  Bible  everywhere  assumes  sovereign  right 
to  authority  over  man — every  man  everywhere 


150  AUTHORITY 

and  always — to  command  belief  and  obedience. 
This  is  where  the  skepticism  of  this  age — and  of 
all  ages — takes  issue  with  it.  Some  theologian 
has  aptly  remarked  that  what  our  age  objects  to 
in  the  realm  of  religion  and  morality  is  au- 
thority, and  in  the  intellectual  sphere  the  miracle. 
Is  choice  of  attitude  categorical  in  this  issue? 
Are  the  contrasts,  which  Christ  constantly  puts 
before  us  in  his  teachings,  not  to  be  avoided? 
Are  we  to  face  one  way  or  another;  give  our  al- 
legiance either  to  good  or  to  evil  ? 

In  view  of  the  issue  at  stake — the  soul's  end- 
less destiny — the  man  who  is  brought  to  face  it 
is  impelled  to  ask,  just  what  are  the  Biblical  re- 
quirements to  M'hich  it  demands  my  conformity 
with  such  sanctions? 

As  this  question  is  put,  we  approach  the  sub- 
ject of  authority  as  consisting  in  a  set  of  prop- 
ositions, dogmas,  codes,  to  which  our  assent  is 
required.  Such  a  situation  results  in  the  ra- 
tional formulation  and  statement  of  what  is  in- 
volved in  this  authoritative  Biblical  claim,  if  any 
genuine  inquirer  is  to  attain  to  intellectual  satis- 
faction. Hence  the  normative  standard  of  our 
creeds,  doctrines,  codes,  and  Bible.  Yea!  re- 
ligion has  been  to  some  extent  justly  classed  by 
the  impious  mind  as  a  "police  force"  in  the  life 
of  the  average  believer.  It  is  external,  rather 
than  positive  and  inward;  constraint  instead  of 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  151 

moving  principle.  It  must  be  observed,  how- 
ever, that  the  very  conception  of  authority  im- 
plies this  restraint.  Its  dictates  are  not  at  our 
discretion;  though  in  us,  they  are  not  of  us,  but 
refer  beyond  us. 

We  must  also  remember  that  the  objective  as- 
pect, of  what  is  too  readily  called  "and  external 
creed,"  has  its  corresponding  subjective  refer- 
ence. The  Old  Testament,  by  addressing  the 
Israelites  in  progressive  etliical  commands,  may 
illustrate  this.  To  consider  all  creeds  only  from 
the  subjective  standpoint,  as  formulations  of  be- 
lief, is  to  cut  asunder  the  bond  of  Christian  fel- 
lowship and  union,  and  refuse  any  objective  cri- 
terion. These  tendencies  run  high  in  mystic  and 
emotional  types  of  religion.  But  while  in  this 
case  piety  often  guarantees  the  essential  features 
of  rehgious  life  and  thus  its  convictions,  even  if 
no  insistence  is  put  upon  their  formulation,  it  be- 
comes quite  another  question,  when  a  skeptical 
age  and  tendency  raises  the  cry,  "Religion  with- 
out theology."  That  is  irrational  and  impossi- 
ble. There  are  over  our  life  objective  standards 
to  which  we  must  conform. 

But  to  admit  the  authority  of  a  Book  as  "the 
perfect  rule  of  faith  and  practice"  is  an  admis- 
sion which  it  is  hard  for  the  skeptical  mind  to 
make,  when  it  does  not  find  itself  in  these  regu- 
lative  standards.     Here   is   the   rub.     For   the 


152  AUTHORITY 

solution  of  the  difficulty,  we  do  no  better  than 
repeat  the  well-known  "Credo  ut  intelligam" ; 
and  this  is  begging  the  question,  so  far  as  there 
is  concerned  a  compelling  of  assent  where  it  is 
not  given.  Yet,  where  the  inquiry  sincerely 
comes,  "If  thou  canst  do  anything,  have  pity  on 
us  and  help  us,"  there  is  also  in  order,  and  does 
also  follow,  the  confession:  "Lord,  I  believe, 
help  thou  mine  unbelief!" 

Dr.  Forsyth,  in  an  article  entitled  "The 
Evangelical  Churches  and  the  Higher  Criti- 
cism," in  the  October  number  of  the  Contempo- 
rary Review  for  1906,  discusses  the  fact  of  au- 
thority, and  does  it  as  one  whose  strong  and 
wholesome  evangelical  conviction  in  the  authority 
of  the  Gospel  evokes  enthusiastic  response.  But 
it  must  be  remarked,  nevertheless,  that  he  does 
not  argue  the  vexed  question  as  to  the  seat  of 
authority,  in  his  helpful  confession  of  faith  in 
God's  redeeming  grace  in  Christ.  It  is,  indeed, 
true,  that  faith  in  the  Gospel  is  the  sine  qua  non 
which  illumines  the  Bible,  which  makes  us  read  it 
religiously,  renders  it  authoritative  for  us.  But 
unless  there  first  be  granted  the  authority,  un- 
less faith  be  first  exercised  in  regard  to  Bible, 
creed  or  Church,  we  cannot  experience  that  sense 
of  authority  that  awes  souls  because  God  reaches 
man.  It  must  remain  a  reaching  out  of  man 
after  God. 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  153 

Dr.  Forsyth's  view  is  popularly  reported  by 
Rev.  Monroe  Smith  in  "Christian  Faith  and 
Doctrine  Series";  "The  Inspiration  and  Au- 
thority of  Holy  Scriptures"  to  which  Principal 
Forsyth  wrote  the  introduction.  Rev.  Smith 
confuses  infallible  guidance  for  the  individual 
soul  (which  would  do  away  with  freedom)  with 
the  infallibility  of  the  inspired  record,  and  de- 
nies the  latter  on  an  argument  against  the 
former. 

It  is  maintained  by  the  advocates  of  the  Bible, 
that  its  Authority  can  be  vindicated  at  the  bar 
of  reason,  not  that  it  can  be  established. 

The  historical  fact  at  the  foundation  is:  that 
God  gave  the  Bible  through  His  prophets  and 
apostles  as  the  Christian  Code.  The  Christian 
contention  is :  that  the  grounds  for  believing  that 
the  Bible  is  a  revelation  from  God  are  of  such 
cogency  that  they  should  command  the  assent  of 
every  reasonable  man.  The  self-evident  duty 
of  the  Christian  Church,  in  an  age  of  skepti- 
cism like  the  present,  is  to  confront  the  doubt 
with  the  most  powerful  presentation  and 
enforcement  of  the  rational  grounds  for  be- 
lief. 

We  consider  briefly  a  single  phase  of  the  gen- 
eral argument — that  from  the  Unity  of  the 
Scriptures — as  treated  by  Dr.  Forsyth. 

(2)     The  Unity  of  the  Scriptures  has  been 


154  AUTHORITY 

recently  urged  with  special  emphasis  as  an  argu- 
ment for  their  Authority  or  Infallibility. 

We  are  glad  that  Dr.  Forsyth  has  directed  at- 
tention to  it,  in  the  paper  already  referred  to. 
It  is  certainly  a  most  remarkable  fact,  that  a 
Book,  made  up  of  many  books,  written  in  dif- 
ferent ages,  in  different  environments,  in  dif- 
ferent languages,  by  men  of  all  varieties  of  tem- 
perament and  degrees  of  culture,  should  yet  have 
such  wholeness,  such  unity,  as  to  be  clearly 
recognizable  as  One  Book, — a  fact  best  ex- 
plained by  its  own  claim,  that  God  entered  into 
its  production,  superintending  the  human  agents 
and  agencies. 

Dr.  Forsyth  urges,  that,  in  order  to  the  full 
impression  of  this  argument,  the  Bible  should  be 
read  as  a  whole,  made  up  of  consentient  and  co- 
herent parts.  But  this  insistence,  as  requiring 
breadth  and  persistence  of  mental  vision,  bids  us 
pause  for  thought. 

To  say,  "We  must  read  the  Bible  as  a  whole," 
is  to  assume  the  organic  unity;  considering  its 
composition,  it  is  to  give  it  a  unique  value. 
Against  those  who,  whilst  maintaining  that  God's 
word  is  in  the  Bible,  feel  yet  at  liberty  to  handle 
its  contents  and  compositions  so  freely  as  to  treat 
it  practically  Hke  any  other  book,  it  is  not  strictly 
an  argument  to  estabhsh  this  authority  of  the 
Bible  as   "God's  redeeming  Word   in   Christ's 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  155 

Cross,"  to  say :  "It  is  not  the  Bible  that  contains 
God's  Word,  so  much  as  God's  Word  that  con- 
tains the  Bible";  unless,  indeed,  the  Bible  is 
made  an  integral  part  of  God's  Word. 

And  then  we  dare  not  be  so  concessive  as  to 
say,  "The  Bible  is  not  a  voucher  but  a  preacher." 
For  we  remember  the  Bible's  ovm.  warning:  "I 
testify  unto  every  man  that  heareth  the  words  of 
the  prophecy  of  this  book,  if  any  man  shall  add 
unto  them,  God  shall  add  unto  him  the  plagues 
which  are  written  in  this  book:  and  if  any  man 
shall  take  away  from  the  words  of  the  book  of 
prophecy,  God  shall  take  away  his  part  from  the 
tree  of  life,  and  out  of  the  holy  city,  which  are 
written  in  this  book."  Unless  we  feel  sure  that 
we  do  find  both  corroboration  and  correction  in 
our  Christian  experiences;  unless  we  can  turn  to 
the  Bible  religiously,  not  critically;  unless  it  is 
an  infallible  guide  whose  face  value  will  be  sus- 
tained by  those  who  read  it  religiously — and 
those  who  do  not  read  it  thus  give  it  no  such 
value — unless,  I  say,  the  Bible  not  only  proves 
an  infallible  guide,  but  is  believed  to  be  such,  its 
authority  will  not  distill  the  spirit  of  devotion. 
The  devout  attitude,  upon  which  Dr.  Forsyth 
himself  insists,  in  the  reading  of  the  Bible,  pre- 
supposes behef  in  the  so  much  depreciated 
"Biblicism"  which  says:  "The  Bible  says,  there- 
fore God  says." 


156  AUTHORITY 

But  Dr.  Forsyth  emphasizes  the  recognition 
of  the  Unity  given  to  the  Bible  by  God's  Pur- 
pose of  Redemption  running  through  it. 

Dr.  Forsyth  is  very  explicit  about  this.  He 
says: 

"The  unity  of  the  Bible  Is  organic,  total,  vital, 
evangelical ;  it  is  not  merely  harmonious,  balanced, 
statuesque.  It  is  not  the  form  of  symmetry  but  the 
spirit  of  reconciliation.  Strike  a  fragment  from  a 
statue  and  you  ruin  it.  Its  unity  is  mere  symmetry 
of  the  kind  that  is  ruined  so.  But  the  unity  of  the 
Bible  is  like  the  unity  of  Nature.  It  has  a  living  power 
always  to  repair  loss  and  transcend  lesion.  The  Bible 
unity  is  given  it  by  the  unity  of  a  Historic  Gospel  de- 
veloping, dominant,  not  detailed.  .  .  .  If  we  are 
to  take  the  Bible  as  Christ  did,  we  may  not  feel  com- 
pelled to  take  the  whole  Bible,  but  we  must  take  the 
Bible  as  a  whole.  .  .  .  The  unity  and  power  of 
the  Bible  is  sacramental;  it  is  not  mechanical." 

Views  and  arguments  hke  those  just  quoted, 
touching  the  unity  of  the  Bible — containing 
much  of  wholesome  truth  and  yet  involving  or 
implying  something  of  serious  error — appear 
so  frequently  and  are  so  generally  prevalent  that 
they  require  close  attention. 

It  is  evident  that  the  notion  of  unity,  as  held 
here,  is  looked  upon  as  brought  to  the  Bible  from 
without.     It  may  be  granted  that  the  regnant 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  157 

Gospel  of  a  Gracious  God  as  moral  Redeemer 
makes  the  Bible  speak  with  that  authority  which 
lays  hold  of  the  believer;  but  the  Bible  appear- 
ing as  a  whole,  as  a  vital  unity,  being  a  sacramen- 
tal Scripture,  it  must  be,  indeed,  the  adequate 
medium  of  this  Gospel  of  Christ.  By  what  au- 
thority is  this  unity,  this  wholeness  guaranteed? 
It  would  seem  only  an  unjustified  assumption, 
unless  we  concede  an  intrinsic,  objective  harmony 
and  unity,  which  makes  the  Bible  indeed  God's 
Word  inspired  as  believed  of  old. 

The  recognition  of  the  presence  of  this  in- 
trinsic harmony  and  unity  in  God's  World  gave 
birth  to  Modern  Science — true  Science  being  im- 
possible until  the  scientific  investigator  was  will- 
ing to  proceed  upon  the  postulate  that  "every 
part  of  the  universe  is  constructed  on  principles 
that  will  yield  clear  meaning  to  his  search  for 
unity,  law,  and  order."  The  beginning  of  the 
recognition  of  a  similar  objective  harmony  and 
unity  in  God's  Word — wliich  like  God's  World 
is  a  complete  Whole — which  prepares  a  way  for 
carrying  the  same  scientific  postulate  into  the 
study  of  the  Bible — foreshadows  and  indeed  in- 
troduces a  new  era  in  Biblical  investigation. 
The  current  view  of  Biblical  unity — as  something 
brought  to  the  Bible  from  without — must  needs 
be  supplemented  by  this  conception;  which  like- 
wise furnishes  a  direction  and  a  caution  touching 


158  AUTHORITY 

the  way  in  which  the  Scriptures  should  be  criti- 
cally handled. 

Is  it  sound  reasoning  to  try  to  justify  muti- 
lations of  the  form  of  the  living  original,  in  how- 
ever small  degree,  when  we  admit  that  the  or- 
ganism as  a  whole  is  essential  to  the  individual 
life,  and  that  this  whole  is  dependent  upon  its 
component  parts?  To  say  that  it  mil  survive, 
that  it  has  not  the  "mere  symmetry  of  a  statue," 
is  pleading  indulgence  for  a  wanton  act,  which 
is  felt  to  require  defense.  But  the  justification 
of  acts  of  mutilation  on  this  ground  can  be  noth- 
ing less  than  to  show  an  improvement.  If  this 
could  be  shown — as  it  is  not  shown — it  would 
destroy  both  infallibility  and  real  "wholeness"  or 
unity.  It  is  admitted  that  by  striking  parts 
from  a  statue  it  is  ruined.  Yet,  does  a  statue, 
as  a  representation,  exact  copy  and  true  imita- 
tion of  life,  include  superfluous  or  cumbersome 
elements,  which  the  living  original  has  not? 

It  seems  strange  that  men  who  admittedly 
value  the  Bible  as  expressive  of  God's  revelation, 
in  some  way  yet  God's  book  and  unique,  will,  on 
the  other  hand,  labor  under  this  unwarranted 
contrast  between  the  Bible  as  we  have  it,  and 
what  they  have  called  the  Bible  of  the  Bible,  or 
God's  Word  in  the  Bible.  If  our  terms  are, 
however,  to  mean  anything,  it  is  evident  that, 
either  God's  revelation  is  adequate,  and  then  au- 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  159 

thoritative;  or  we  have  to  proclaim  our  so-called 
unassisted  reason  authority  over  the  Scriptures. 
And,  in  the  latter  case,  I  do  not  see  why  we 
should  specially  need  a  Bible  at  all.  Your 
choice  is  between  alternatives;  you  are  to  submit 
to  its  authority,  if  the  Book  is  to  guide  you  in 
any  real  sense;  or  you  may  discriminate  as  to 
the  very  validity  of  the  Book  and  its  contents, 
but  in  that  case  it  is  an  illusion  to  fancy  yourself 
guided  at  all.  If  you  are  to  be  led,  you  must 
learn  the  "grammar  of  assent"  to  your  leader  and 
to  what  he  is  to  lead  you.  You  do  not  under- 
stand all;  there  are  difficulties,  mysteries,  per- 
plexing things  in  it, — as  indeed  there  are  in 
God's  World.  As  you  cannot  establish  your 
own  infallible  authority,  it  has  to  come  to  you. 
Perhaps  you  do  not  fully  understand  it  all,  but 
"God  is  His  own  interpreter,  and  He  will  make 
it  plain." 

It  should  be  further  noted  that  the  issue  as  to 
the  authority  or  infallibility  of  the  Bible  does 
not  involve  taking  all  the  parts  of  it  as  of  equal 
value.  I  know  of  no  believer  in  the  infallibility 
of  the  Scriptures  who  means  to  maintain  that  he 
therefore  does,  or  must,  value  every  part  of  it 
alike,  or  claim  to  understand  every  particular. 
Most  believers  feed  with  preference  upon  those 
sections  which  find  them,  which  speak  to  them 
most  potently.     Some  limit  themselves  almost 


160  AUTHORITY 

exclusively  to  specific  portions  of  Scripture,  with- 
out having  even  so  much  as  raised  the  question 
that  this  might  imply  inferiority  of  other  parts, 
or  even  render  them  superfluous  to  the  Bible. 
The  principle  at  issue  is  the  authority  of  the 
Bible  as  God's  Book. 

As  to  the  use  of  analogy,  suggested  by  Dr. 
Forsyth — which  is  intended  for  concession  to 
those  who  discard  this  Biblical  authority — we 
would  ask:  Though  its  unity  is  not  mere  sym- 
metry or  statuesque,  any  more  than  is  that  of 
any  living  organism,  does  that  justify  at  all  the 
claim  to  mutilate  the  organism,  the  whole?  If 
there  be  a  whole  at  all,  the  parts  must  in  some 
way  function  harmoniously  in  this  whole;  relate 
to  it  in  some  subservient,  tributary  way.  We 
can  survive  the  loss  of  some  parts  of  our  body; 
the  loss  of  some  parts,  whose  functioning  is  not 
known,  would  not  perceptibly  change  the  work- 
ing of  our  organism.  If  this  principle  is  not 
to  be  applied  so  as  to  mutilate  the  structure  of 
the  living,  bodily  organism,  neither  should  it  be 
applied  to  the  Bible,  if  such  a  unity  or  whole- 
ness is  granted  in  it.  And  this  expression,  the 
Unity  of  the  Bible — just  as  its  being  "God's 
Book,"  "Divine  Revelation,"  "Holy  Writ,"  etc., 
— would  mean  simply  that  its  Truth  stands  ob- 
jectively real,  over  man  with  authority. 

Revelations,    claiming    supernatural    origin, 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  161 

are  understood  to  arise  not  from  human  experi- 
ence, but  to  have  been  projected  by  God  into 
human  Hfe  as  normative  and  infallible  stand- 
ards, i.  e.,  possess  Divine  authority.  A  distinc- 
tion between  direct  and  indirect  revelation  rests 
upon  a  false  psychology,  since  it  involves  the 
idea  of  unmediated  revelation.  Revelation  to 
be  revelation  at  all  must,  from  the  nature  of  the 
case,  be  mediated  by  some  form  to  the  recipient. 
We  cannot  even  conceive  of  consciousness  with- 
out an  implied  content.  The  subject-conscious- 
ness involves  an  object.  The  customary  dis- 
tinction aims,  however,  rather  at  a  difference  be- 
tween original  or  final  and  derived  authority. 
The  first,  being  self -revelation,  finds  man  while 
man  finds  the  latter  only  after  the  first  is  estab- 
lished, and  as  corroborative  evidence.  Of 
course,  all  derived  social  authority,  relative  in 
form  and  emphasi^,  is  in  the  end  warranted  by 
Divine  Authority;  but  social  life  as  a  whole  does 
not  go  to  the  source  of  this  final  authority. 
That  Divine  revelation  has  to  come  in  the  same 
way  as  all  other  knowledge  affords  no  sufficient 
reason  for  classing  it  with  other  knowledge. 
This  is  indeed  neglected  by  those  who  treat 
Christianity  as  mere  historic  fact  and  the  Bible 
as  mere  literature.  When  historical  Christianity 
and  the  historical  revelation  of  the  Bible  become 
merely  descriptive  terms,  then  both  may  be  con- 


162  AUTHORITY 

ceived  of  as  made  of  a  piece  with  all  other  his- 
toric events,  as  purely  human  product.  If  such 
a  procedure  be  adopted,  it  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  claim  of  supernatural  origin  for 
both  has  been  dismissed  at  the  start,  inasmuch  as 
these  events  are  presumed  to  be  brought  wholly 
within  the  limits  of  the  historic  past.  Where  the 
inadequacy  of  historic  explanation  is  perceived, 
while  this  procedure  is  still  insisted  upon,  resort 
is  taken  to  allowing  traditional  inspiration  in  a 
merely  nominal  sense,  in  order  to  bolster  up  the 
fact  of  revelation.  To  keep  the  closed  circle  of 
historic  events  in  which  we  may  trace  how  men 
successively  conceived  of  God,  not  without  his 
divine  impulses,  and  jet  to  affirm  a  self -reve- 
lation of  God  to  man  as  an  impact  which  either 
had  no  result  at  all,  or  resulted  in  the  same  faulty 
human  products,  seems  an  illogical  device.  It  is 
difficult  to  see  the  help  or  need  of  a  Divine  in- 
spiration the  outcome  of  which  is  just  as  faulty 
as  all  other  mere  human  knowledge.  And  yet 
such  is  the  logic  of  that  view  which  retains  a  be- 
lief in  inspired  men,  but  not  in  an  inspired  book. 
One  may  go  the  whole  length  with  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  and  vest  the  Church  (i.  e.  the 
clergy)  with  this  authority.  In  that  case  the 
authority  of  the  Bible  is  subordinate  to  the  in- 
spired priest;  but  another  priest  is  another 
Clirist!     We  are  not  now  concerned  with  the 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  163 

question  whether  these  claims  of  super-natural 
origin  can  be  vindicated  in  the  face  of  modern 
criticism.  We  admit  the  point  urged  by  an  im- 
patient unbeliever  against  the  clinging  to  an  au- 
thority which  is  admittedly  no  more  acknowl- 
edged. Bargy  compares  this  procedure  to  "the 
retreat  of  an  army  in  covering  which  all  the 
members  fall  one  by  one.  It  arrives  at  last  in 
an  inaccessible  place  of  refuge.  The  army  has 
no  more  men,  but  is  safe.  .  .  .  Little  by 
little  parts  of  the  Bible  were  given  up,  one  by 
one,  without  counting  they  were  surrendered  to 
the  scientists,  but  the  sanctity  of  the  whole  was 
maintained."  ("Religion  in  Society  in  the 
United  States.") 

McPeeters  cautions  wisely  in  regard  to  these 
problems  of  the  higher  criticism.  He  says  in  an 
article  in  the  Princeton  Theological  Review : 

"We  should  not  be  misled  by  current  contempt  for 
^authority.'  Let  us  rather  hope  that  this  is  merely 
a  passing  phase  of  intellectual  bumptiousness  and  con- 
fused thought.  To  say  that  the  problem  of  the  Higher 
criticism  cannot  be  settled  by  'authority'  is  either  to 
say  that  there  are  no  persons  who  are  competent  to 
settle  them  in  the  use  of  internal  evidence  or  otherwise; 
or  it  is  to  say  that  for  the  great  majority  of  man- 
kind they  cannot  be  settled  at  all.  For,  whatever  the 
process  employed  to  solve  the  problems  of  Higher 
Criticism,  provided  it  really  solves  them,  he  who  is  mas- 


164  AUTHORITY 

ter  of  that  process  is  in  a  position  authoritatively  to 
solve  those  problems,  for  any  and  all  others.  Else  why 
do  we  hear  so  much  about  the  'assured  results'  of  a  cer- 
tain school  of  critics?  This  label  so  conspicuously  in 
evidence  upon  their  goods  would  seem  to  have  but  one 
possible  object,  namely,  to  beget  in  the  public  the  con- 
viction that  there  are  those  who  are  competent  to  settle 
these  vexing  questions  for  them.  But,  if  so,  then  these 
questions  can  be  settled  by  authority.  And  if  they  can 
be  settled  by  authority,  who  shall  say  that  they  may  not 
be  settled  upon  the  authority  of  our  Lord  and  His 
apostles?  What,  if  our  Lord  assumes  the  ability  and 
the  right  to  settle  them?  Shall  we  repudiate  his  au- 
thority at  this  point?  After  all,  for  most  persons,  so 
far  as  these  problems  are  concerned,  it  is  simply  a 
question  as  to  whether  they  will  accept  their  solution 
of  these  from  Christ  and  His  apostles,  or  from  certain 
modern  scholars  who,  quoad  hoc,  affect  to  be  better  in- 
formed and  safer  guides  than  Christ  Himself." 
("The  Determination  of  Religious  Value  the  Ultimate 
Problem  of  the  Higher  Criticism."     July,  1908.) 

All  that  concerns  us  at  present  is  whether  the 
authority  of  Christianity  and  of  the  Bible  can  be 
retained  along  with  the  invalidation  of  these 
claims.  It  will  be  readily  seen  that  we  face  here 
again  the  same  problem  of  causal  connection. 
Did  Christ  and  the  Bible  come  to  be  recognized 
as  authoritative  because  of  inherent  original  au- 
thority, or  is  this  recognition  the  projection  of 


BIBLE  AUTHORITY  165 

a  faith-state  which  made  authoritative  what  was 
not  so  in  itself,  and  even  elaborated  a  theory 
of  Divine  origin  and  inspiration  in  its  defense? 
It  would  leave  us  to  explain,  whence  this  strong 
sense  of  authority. 

If  the  Bible  is  its  own  authority,  it  is  well  to 
read  the  Bible  itself  rather  than  to  read  about 
it.  There  has  been  so  much  talking  about  the 
Bible  that  it  is  only  fair  to  let  it  now  speak  for 
itself.  For  it  is  surprising  to  find  how  little  fa- 
miliar the  average  church  member,  or  even  the 
modern  preacher,  is  with  the  Bible!  This  cir- 
cumstance appears  so  significant  in  this  connec- 
tion that  it  may  well  give  us  pause  to  reflect,  and 
repeat  the  locus  classical:  "Every  Scripture  in- 
spired of  God  is  also  profitable  for  teaching,  for 
reproof,  for  consideration  which  is  in  righteous- 
ness, that  the  man  of  God  may  be  complete, 
furnished  completely  unto  every  good  work." 

It  has  also  been  suggested  that,  though  one 
might  concede  the  whole  of  the  Bible  to  be  true, 
and  therefore  authoritative,  this  need  not  bind 
us  now,  inasmuch  as  some  parts  were  true  and 
needed  at  one  time,  but  are  no  longer  applicable 
or  even  desirable  as  norms.  These  are,  indeed, 
rightfully  in  the  Bible,  because  they  were  re- 
quired in  the  developmnt  of  Christianity.  This 
view,  however,  needs  little  consideration,  as  it 
resolves  truth  and  authority  into  a  merely  func- 


166  AUTHORITY 

tional  fitness  of  the  organ.  The  authority  of 
truth  is  incompatible  with  the  notion  of  expedi- 
ency. The  concession  is  meaningless  and  the 
view  of  truth  thoroughly  pragmatic.  The  seri- 
ous-minded theologian  is  concerned  with  truth 
and  adheres  to  the  semper  uhique  ah  omnibus. 
He  is  therefore  disinclined  to  dismiss  or  discount 
any  truth,  so  far  as  ascertained,  because  of  its 
incompleteness,  nor  will  he  entertain  the  idea  of 
truth — if  it  be  truth  at  all — ever  becoming  obso- 
lete. The  term  "new  truth,"  which  is  so  much 
in  the  air,  is  a  misnomer  as  opposed  to  "old 
truth,"  for  all  truth  is  one.  The  term  may  be 
freely  admitted  in  the  sense  of  additional  truth. 
Fortunately,  however,  it  seems  usually  to  mean 
alleged  truths  that  are  destined  to  remain  essen- 
tially new,  inasmuch  as  they  have  not  enough  au- 
thority in  them  ever  to  grow  old,  not  being  au- 
thorized by  the  Truth  they  ignore,  i.  e.,  the  tran- 
scendent, everlasting  source  of  all  truth  and  au- 
thority. For  the  theologian,  as  for  every  truth- 
seeker,  the  word  of  Clough  expresses  a  deep 
conviction : 

"It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 
That,  though  I  perish,  Truth  is  so." 


CHAPTER    XVI 

AN  OBJECTIVE  SOURCE  OF 
AUTHORITY 

Authority  means  recognized,  established 
power,  witness,  statement,  command,  etc.,  ac- 
cepted and  obeyed  without  any  questioning.  It 
implies  the  sentiment  of  Don  Diegue  in  Le  Cid 
of  Corneille : 

"On  doit  ce  respect  au  pouvoir  absolu 
De  n'examiner  rien  quand  un  roi  a  voulu." 

It  is  experienced,  felt,  and  taken  with  the 
sense  of  objective  validity.  It  exists  (ex- 
sistere),  it  stands  out  before  us,  independent  of 
us  or  of  our  conception.  Though  its  efficacy  for 
us  be  largely  determined  by  our  relation  to  it, 
the  authority  as  generally  received  is  only  its 
subjective  aspect,  its  recognition  by  men.  A 
source  of  information,  or  a  duly  accredited  fact,  is 
considered  sufficient  to  give  authority  to  a  state- 
ment, as,  viz.,  an  authoritative  witness.  But  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  acceptance  of  au- 
thority, the  power  derived  from  opinion,  respect 
or  esteem,  is  the  resulting  influence  of  authority  it- 
self.    Dr.  Forsyth  in  conceding  to  the  Bible  only 

167 


168  AUTHORITY 

this  kind  of  authority  is  reasoning  in  a  circle 
when  he  tries  to  authorize  the  Gospel  conception 
by  the  Bible.  Authority,  as  objectively  resid- 
ing in  the  forms  of  life,  and  in  historic  develop- 
ment, refers  to  the  inherent  truth  of  these  forms ; 
it  has  self-evident  justification.  It  is  the  same, 
when  in  daily  intercourse  the  utterance  is  heard: 
Who  or  what  is  your  authority?  This  is  a  char- 
acteristic inquiry  inasmuch  as  it  asks  for  a  guar- 
antee to  establish  the  reliability  of  that  to  which 
assent  is  given.  This  authorization  is  not  always 
exhaustively  established  for  those  who  thus  ques- 
tion, nor  do  they  require  this.  It  is  sufficient 
when  subjective  needs  and  required  guarantees 
are  met  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  truth.  The  question  calls  forth  an 
authority  beyond  the  first  alleged  authority. 
The  subsequent  endeavor  aims  to  have  this  au- 
thority acknowledged  as  objective  fact,  thus  af- 
fecting the  personal  witness  by  meeting  and  sub- 
duing the  individual  authority  residing  in  the 
verdicts  of  conscience  and  reason.  It  would  seem 
that  this  is  putting  objective  authority  out  of 
court  by  bringing  it  before  the  bar  of  individual 
approval.  Yet,  in  leaving  the  defendant  to  es- 
tablish his  claim,  recourse  must  needs  be  taken 
to  authority  of  some  sort  in  the  procedure  to 
establish  the  recognition  of  some  form  of  author- 
ity before  the  critical  mind. 


SOURCE  OF  AUTHORITY        169 

This  yielding  to  final  authority  seldom  re- 
quires exhaustive  verification  on  the  ground  of 
imphcit  reliance  on  self-evident  truth — the  au- 
thority of  authority.  In  the  exercise  of  faith,  we 
accept  as  a  final  authority  those  facts  and  forms 
which  function  creditably  in  accordance  with  in- 
dividual requirements  in  regard  to  truth.  Thus 
a  scholar,  who  presents  his  subject  exhaustively, 
is  considered  an  authority  on  his  subject.  He 
gives  first  hand  evidences  which  are  recognized 
as  such.  Consequently  his  statements  made 
from  original,  direct,  personal  contact  with  facts, 
as  first  hand  evidence,  are  received  and 
recognized  as  authoritative  by  others.  This  is 
strikingly  illustrated  in  the  concluding  remark 
of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  which  at  the  end  of 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  observes  in  regard  to 
Christ's  teaching:  "And  after  Jesus  had  ended 
these  sayings  the  people  were  astonished  at  his 
doctrine  for  he  taught  as  one  having  authority 
and  not  as  the  scribes." 

The  word  used  is,  i^oo(Tca=  out  of  (His) 
being,  i.  e.,  as  direct  first  hand  witness  to  truth. 
He,  the  law  in  living  figure,  the  Way,  the  Truth 
and  the  Life  Himself  came  to  bear  witness  to 
the  truth  in  a  unique  way  as  contrasted  with 
scribal  book-lore  about  the  law. 

Indeed,  very  few  things,  even  in  our  daily  life, 
though  of  trivial  importance,  are  verifiable  by 


170  AUTHORITY 

each  individual.  So  we  constantly  believe,  speak 
and  act  on  authority.  This  being  the  case  in  the 
daily  intercourse  of  our  common  life  in  which 
we  depend  upon  the  detailed  and  penetrating 
study  of  experts,  it  is  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  much  more  so  in  questions  relating  to  ulti- 
mate causes  beyond  which  we  cannot  go,  as,  viz., 
God's  Revelation  in  His  Word.  Wherever  its 
verification  is  excluded,  assent  is  required  by  the 
exercise  of  faith,  which  accepts  its  affirmation  at 
face  value,  that  is,  on  authority.  Reason 
recognizes  its  own  limits.  It  simply  accepts, 
but  does  not  establish  the  trustworthiness  of  our 
senses,  that  the  world  has  objective  existence, 
that  the  laws  of  thought  yield  truth,  that  there 
is  correspondence  between  thought  and  being, 
between  subject  and  object,  spirit  and  matter. 

Even  if,  in  the  ordinary  departments  of  so- 
cial, civil,  and  religious  life,  the  impossible 
proposition  that  we  go  back  for  authorization  to 
those  primordial  truths  without  which  the  argu- 
mentation in  justification  of  any  specific  form  of 
authoritative  truth  would  be  impossible,  should 
be  insisted  upon;  or  if  the  critical  disposition 
should  take  for  granted  only  a  few  propositions 
as  established  and  immune  from  critical  investi- 
gation; in  either  case,  the  acceptance  of  some 
prima  facie  evidence  must  enter  in.  It  is  there- 
fore an  amazingly  superficial  assumption  that 


SOURCE  OF  AUTHORITY        171 

modern  writers  make  when  they  say,  "We  want 
truth  for  authority,  not  authority  for  truth." 
The  first  is  what  we  are  in  search  of;  we  cannot 
claim  to  have  it  already;  and  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  we  shall  not  get  it,  if  we  follow  the  method 
proposed  in  the  latter  part  of  this  motto.  We 
feel,  therefore,  constrained  to  repeat  the  greater 
wisdom  of  old  "credo  ut  intelligam."  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  authority  is  in  full  force  in  all  depart- 
ments of  hfe. 

Professor  James  touches  upon  this  subject  in 
his  essay,  "The  Will  to  Believe."      He  says: 

"We  may  regard  the  chase  for  truth  as  paramount, 
and  the  avoidance  of  error  as  secondary,  or  we  may, 
on  the  other  hand,  treat  the  avoidance  of  error  as  more 
imperative,  and  let  the  truth  take  its  chance." 

I  suppose — as  Professor  James  himself  sug- 
gests— that  of  these  two  alternatives  we  have 
only  a  Hobson's  choice.  Giving  the  "first  and 
great  commandment  to  would-be  knowers":  We 
must  know  the  truth;  and  we  must  avoid  error, 
he  insists  that  these  "are  not  two  ways  of  stating 
an  identical  commandment,  they  are  two  sepa- 
rate laws."     And  affain: 


*&• 


"Although  it  may  indeed  happen  that  when  we  be- 
lieve the  truth  A,  we  escape  as  an  incidental  consequence 


172  AUTHORITY 

from  believing  the  falsehood  B,  it  hardly  ever  happens 
that  by  merely  disbelieving  B  we  necessarily  believe  A. 
We  may  in  escaping  B  fall  into  believing  other  false- 
hoods, C  or  D,  just  as  bad  as  B;  or  we  may  escape 
B  by  not  believing  anything  at  all,  not  even  A." 

It  is  strange  that  tliis  statement  should  occur 
in  the  essay  which  so  ably  sets  forth  the  influence 
of  "temperamental  atmosphere"  and  character 
upon  our  intellectual  beliefs.  It  simply  shows 
how  the  views  of  a  candid,  empiric  philosopher 
are  vitiated  by  his  pluralistic  belief.  It  appears 
sufficiently  evident  that  a  suspense  of  belief — 
whatever  its  possibility  in  specific  cases — as  a 
rule  of  conduct  at  least,  is  impossible.  There 
is,  then,  really  only  one  rule:  We  must  know  the 
truth,  which  incidentally  implies  that  we  are  to 
avoid  error.  It  is  the  sense  of  the  latter  injunc- 
tion that  raises  the  query,  "What  is  your  au- 
thority?" It  is  the  negative  safeguard  to  give 
assent  only  to  duly  accredited  facts,  to  yield  to 
the  right  of  authority,  to  truth.  Now,  it  would 
seem  that  Professor  James,  in  speaking  so  forci- 
bly about  Clifford's  adverse  disposition  towards 
Christianity,  should  have  seen  that  there  is  no 
danger  of  his  choosing  any  form  of  it.  The 
specific  forms,  the  cases  presented  to  us,  appeal 
to  us,  or  fail  to  do  so,  according  as  we  have 
fashioned  and  molded  our  character.     It  is  not, 


SOURCE  OF  AUTHORITY        173 

therefore,  a  question  at  all  of  putting  the  choice. 
We  start  out  with  the  positive  injunction,  im- 
plying the  negative  aspect  of  rejecting  that 
which  does  not  stand  on  the  rightful  authority  of 
truth.  Nor  is  tliis  "enfant  terrible,"  Clifford, 
urging  suspense  of  judgment  because  of  choice, 
but  rather  on  account  of  "insufficient  evidence," 
on  the  plea  that  every  asset  is  unwarranted  un- 
til the  evidence  is  complete.  Just  as  James  him- 
self assures  us, — "Evidently,  then,  our  non-in- 
tellectual nature  does  influence  our  convictions." 
.  .  .  As  a  rule  we  disbelieve  all  facts  and  the- 
ories for  which  we  have  no  use.  For  Clifford 
Christianity  is  a  dead  hypothesis  from  the  start 
(consequently  excluded  from  the  choice  which 
Professor  James  proposes).  So  truth  may  be- 
come a  dead  issue  for  one  by  constantly  running 
into  error,  and  error  lose  its  insidious  tempta- 
tions for  him  whose  candor  sincerely  makes  for 
truth. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  Professor  James  in- 
sists on  limiting  to  the  subjective  attitude  meta- 
physical implications.  The  psychologist  gets 
the  better  of  the  metaphysician.  In  his  Pragma- 
tism the  whole  of  metaphysics  is  let  down  prac- 
tically into  the  sphere  of  psychology.  The  great 
physicist,  Du  Bois  Reymond,  also  makes  an  un- 
warranted inference  in  his  famous  address: 
"Uber  die  Grenzen  des  Naturerkennens"  with 


174  AUTHORITY 

the  same  subjectivistic  bias.  He  says:  "Dass 
es  in  Wirklichkeit  keine  Qualitaten  geibt,  folgt 
aus  der  Zergliederung  unserer  Sinneswahrneh- 
mungen.  .  .  .  Eigenschaftlos,  wie  sie  aus 
der  subjectiven  Zergliederung  hervorgeht,  ist 
die  Welt  auch  fiir  die  durch  objective  Betrach- 
tung  gewonnene  mechanische  Anschauung, 
welche  statt  Schall  und  Licht  nur  Schwingungen 
eines  eigenschaftslosen,  dort  als  wagbare  hier 
als  scheinbar  unwagbare  INIaterie  sich  darbieten- 
den  Urstoff es  kennt."  From  the  fact  that  sensa- 
tions are  conditioned  in  their  reception,  it  does 
not  follow  that  the  differentiation  is  wholly  an 
affair  of  the  receiving  agent  in  response  to  the 
activity  of  a  property-less  sub-stratum  of  undif- 
ferentiated substance.  As  there  is  no  meta- 
psychic,  we  must  leave  sensations  their  represen- 
tative meaning. 

Our  belief  in  truth,  that  there  is  a  truth,  and 
that  our  minds  are  made  for  it,  would  stand,  even 
if  our  social  system  did  not  confirm  it.  Our 
hearts  respond  to  the  authoritative  announce- 
ment that  we  were  created  in  the  image  of  God, 
as  it  says  in  Gen.  i.  27,  "And  God  created  man 
in  his  owTi  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created 
he  him."  This  belief  is  not  the  result  of  desire 
and  instinct,  but  is  anterior  and  basal  to  them. 

God  has  left  his  witness  in  the  heart,  and  if 
we  are  walking  in  rectitude  of  will,  the  Spirit  of 


SOURCE  OF  AUTHORITY        175 

truth  will  lead  us  into  all  truth.  We  find  cor- 
roboration of  this  everywhere.  For  truth  is  in- 
deed one,  as  God  is  one.  But  Prof.  James  dis- 
owns this,  until  demonstrably  verified  to  the  in- 
tellect. Yet,  Prof.  James,  in  another  brilliant 
essay  on  "The  Sentiment  of  Rationality,"  says: 
"The  necessity  of  faith  as  an  ingredient  in  our 
mental  attitude  is  strongly  insisted  on  by  the 
scientific  philosophers  of  the  present  day;  but 
by  a  singularly  arbitrary  caprice  they  say  that  it 
is  only  legitimate  when  used  in  the  interests  of 
one  particular  proposition, — the  proposition, 
namely,  that  the  course  of  nature  is  uniform. 
That  nature  will  follow  to-morrow  the  same 
laws  that  it  follows  to-day  is,  they  all  admit,  a 
truth  which  no  man  can  know;  but  in  the  inter- 
est of  recognition  as  well  as  of  action  we  must 
postulate  or  assume  it."  As  Helmholtz  says: 
"Hier  gilt  nur  der  eine  Rath;  vertraue  und 
handle."  And  Professor  Bain  urges:  "Our  only 
error  is  in  proposing  to  give  any  reason  or  justi- 
fication of  the  postulate,  or  to  treat  it  as  other- 
wise than  begged  at  the  very  outset."  Faith 
means  belief  in  something  concerning  which 
doubt  is  still  theoretically  possible;  and  as  the 
test  of  belief  is  willingness  to  act,  one  may  say 
that  faith  is  the  readiness  to  act  in  a  cause  the 
prosperous  issue  of  which  is  not  certified  to  us 
in  advance.     In   "Reflect  Action  and  Theism" 


176  AUTHORITY 

James  says :  "I  will  only  remind  you  that  each 
one  of  us  is  entitled  either  to  doubt  or  to  believe, 
he  does  alike  on  his  personal  responsibility  and 
risk."     He  quotes  with  approval  the  lines: 

("Du  musst  glauben,  du  musst  wagen 
Denn  die  Gotter  leihn  kein  Pfand, 
Nur  ein  Wunder  kann  dich  tragen 
In  das  schone  Wunderland.") 

"Believe  jou  must,  and  risk. 
For  Gods  ne'er  lend  a  pledge. 
A  miracle  alone  can  bear 
Into  the  beauty  of  that  wondrous  land." 

But,  in  spite  of  this.  Professor  James  ought 
to  be  reminded  that  there  is  no  metapsychic,  and 
that  we  can  find  the  home  of  truth  within.  And 
whether  we  can  demonstrate  their  objective 
validity  or  not,  we  must  take  the  primordial  ver- 
dicts of  conscience  and  reason  on  authority  and 
as  having  objective  reference. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
PRAGMATISM  AND  AUTHORITY 

Professor  James  has  made  overmuch  of  the 
subjective  aspect.  In  "The  Will  to  Believe"  he 
wrote:  "The  desire  for  a  certain  kind  of  truth 
here  brings  about  that  special  truth's  existence," 
and  so  it  is  in  innumerable  other  cases.  "Faith 
in  a  fact  can  help  create  a  fact."  "There  are 
cases  where  faith  creates  its  own  verification," 
etc.  This  subjective  aspect  is  not  to  be  over- 
looked, and  selective  thinking,  the  personal  equa- 
tion in  the  grouping  and  viewing  of  facts  needs 
to  be  taken  in  account.  Yet,  not  with  disre- 
gard to  objective  truth.  In  fact,  what  does  it 
matter  if  all  knowledge  is  subjective?  One  may 
then  well  ask  with  Pilate  in  indiiferent  scorn 
that  greatest  of  questions:  "What  is  truth?" 

Since,  then.  Professor  James  espoused  more 
pronouncedly  the  pragmatic  attitude  in  disregard 
of  objective  reference  of  truth,  he  is  left  not  only 
with  things  unrelated,  but  with  a  world  of  pure 
experience,  which  is  unrelated. 

This  pragmatism  does  make  successful  prac- 
tice the  very  essence  of  truth,  and  substitutes  for 
the  view  of  truth  as  "accordance  of  our  ideas 

17T 


178  AUTHORITY 

with  reality,"  a  valuation  by  the  individual. 
This  individual  valuation  is  emphasized  in  the 
pragmatic  school  in  proportion  as  the  acceptance 
of  truth  at  face  value,  i.  e.,  as  true  representation 
of  reality,  is  discredited.  This  shifting  of  em- 
phasis from  what  constitutes  truth  (treow  = 
faithfulness  to  fact)  to  the  always  inadequate  at- 
tempt at  its  verification  is  a  hopeless  and  harm- 
ful confusion.  Indeed,  Professor  INIacbride 
Sterrett  well  says  of  this  school: 

"What  now  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  this  ex- 
travagantly vaunted  new  theory  that  is  styled  prag- 
matism? As  one  reads  most  of  the  volumes,  he  becomes 
dazed  and  bewildered  and  ends  with  very  vague  ideas 
of  what  the  thing  really  means.  First  these  prag- 
matists  give  us  to  understand  that  truth  as  an  objective 
system — truth,  the  search  for  which  has  been  the  object 
of  all  science  and  philosophy,  is  a  mere  cob-web  of  the 
intellect.  Second,  that  all  our  judgments  of  reality  are 
worth — or  value — judgments.  What  is  called  truth 
and  reality  consists  in  bare  practical  effects.  In  science, 
for  instance,  if  it  serves  our  practical  purposes  better 
to  use  the  Ptolemic  instead  of  the  Copernican  theory 
in  astronomy,  then  it  is  the  true  and  real  for  us.  In 
morals,  if  honesty  is  the  best  policy,  then  honesty  is 
the  truth.  In  philosophy,  if  we  can  get  more  out  of 
our  moral  and  religious  life  by  believing  in  polytheism 
instead  of  monotheism,  then  polytheism  is  the  truth, 
which  is  practically  the  view  of  Professor  Howison  and 


PRAGMATISM  AND  AUTHORITY  179 

Professor  James  and  Professor  Schiller.  The  cui  bono 
scales  are  to  give  us  the  validity  of  judgments  in  all 
spheres.  Reasonableness  of  truth  is  not  a  good  in  it- 
self. It  is  an  abstraction.  There  is  no  truth,  no  ab- 
solute system  of  truth  independent  of  the  needs  of  men. 
Love  of  such  supposed  truth,  which  has  always  been  the 
inspiration  of  thinkers,  is  rudely  taken  from  us  as  the 
worship  of  a  false  god.  Such  truth  is  useless,  and  the 
useless  is  false.  We  can  say  that  what  is  true  in  prag- 
matism is  not  new,  and  what  is  new  in  it — the  attempt 
to  substitute  value- judgments  in  all  cognition  for  judg- 
ments of  truth  and  reality — is  not  true."  ("The 
Freedom  of  Authority,"  p.  Sllff.) 

Professor  Sterrett  defines  "Authority"  as 
"any  power  or  influence  through  which  one  does 
or  believes  what  he  would  not  do  of  his  own  un- 
aided powers."  (p.  6.)  If  this  is  understood  as 
a  personal  dictum,  as  the  command  of  superior 
enlarged  personality,  involving  a  reliance  on,  or 
committal  to  superior  wisdom  of  wider  or  deeper 
experience  in  which  truth  is  recognized  by  one's 
reason,  it  is  quite  pointed. 

In  another  essay  ("Humanism  and  Truth," 
Mind,  U.  S.  52,  p.  463)  Professor  James  says: 
"Whether  experience  itself  is  due  to  something 
independent  of  all  possible  experience  is  a  ques- 
tion which  pragmatism  declines  to  answer." 
And  in  "Pragmatism"  he  plainly  declares :  "Our 
account  of  truth  is  as  account  of  truths  in  the 


180  AUTHORITY 

plural,  of  processes  of  leading,  realized  in  rebus, 
and  having  only  this  quality  in  common,  that 
they  pay"  (p.  218).  In  making  satisfaction  the 
criterion  of  truth,  in  conceiving  of  "the  true  as 
that  which  gives  the  maximal  combination  of 
satisfactions,"  Professor  James  wrongs  our  in- 
herent sense  of  the  authority  of  truth.  Espe- 
cially does  he  ignore  the  sense  of  the  moral  im- 
plications of  truth  as  revealed  in  our  hearts. 

Would  the  gifted  scientist  could  have  said 
in  a  deeper  sense  than  he  meant  to  express  when 
quoting  Pascal:  "Le  coeur  a  ses  raisons  que  la 
raison  ne  connait  pas!"  or  have  exclaimed  with 
Paul:  "With  the  heart  man  believeth  unto 
righteousness." 

This  pragmatic  attitude  whose  bugbear  is  to 
give  things  real  objective  reference  so  that  our 
knowledge  fits  the  scheme  of  things,  finds  its 
"enfant  terrible"  in  Mr.  E.  W.  Lyman,  who 
says,  in  an  article  "The  Influence  of  Pragma- 
tism upon  the  Status  of  Theologj^"  published  in 
"Philosophy  and  Psychology,"  a  commemorative 
volume  by  pupils  of  Professor  Garland: 

"Meanwhile  the  actual  absoluteness  of  Christianity, 
so  far  as  it  can  be  grounded  in  religious  psychology  and 
religious  history,  is  undiminished  by  discrediting  any 
artificial  supplement  that  might  be  constructed  through 
the  aid  of  some  supposed  metaphysical  necessity.     The 


PRAGMATISM  AND  AUTHORITY  181 

recognition  of  the  mere  possibility  that  new  values  may 
arise,  which  may  even  be  discontinuous  with  the  old, 
does  not  mean  the  recognition  that  there  have  already 
arisen  needs  calling  for  such  values ;  it  merely  asserts 
the  sovereignty  of  this  additional  practical  need  that, 
when  new  needs  do  arise,  they  should  be  satisfied  by 
their  appropriate  values.  It  is  true  that  the  main- 
tenance of  a  right  proportion  in  values  may  require  the 
subordination  of  the  new  needs,  but  at  all  events  they 
must  not  be  suppressed  in  advance  by  a  priori  reason- 
ing. This  priority  of  need  to  values  is  already  an  ele- 
ment in  the  standard  value  of  Christianity." 

Mr.  Lyman,  in  other  words,  is  so  pragmatic 
that  he  feels  warranted  in  discrediting  the  au- 
thority of  truth  on  the  basis  of  his  need  of  pos- 
sible needs.  Yet,  he  seems  to  allow  an  ordering 
of  our  needs,  which  of  course  involves  a  rational 
procedure  to  maintain  a  right  proportion  of 
values.  Strangely  enough,  the  essay  concludes 
with  a  tribute  to  faith.  Now  faith  is  the 
recognition  of  authority,  on  as  reasonable 
grounds  as  the  person  exercising  faith  has  at  his 
disposal.  Mr.  Lyman,  however,  objects  to  au- 
thority on  the  strength  of  need  and  instinct. 
Indeed,  the  manward  side  of  truth  is  all  there  is 
of  truth.  And  this  subjective  aspect  of  truth 
which  has  come  to  displace  its  philosophy,  is 
dominated  by  the  physical  functions  which  made 
the  world  of  sense  loom  up  large.     This  world- 


182  AUTHORITY 

view  is  practical  with  reference  to  the  instant 
need  of  things ;  it  keeps  a  steady  eye  on  the  wants 
of  the  moment.  It  constitutes  the  utilitarian  ex- 
pediency of  our  world-wise  age  which  discards 
philosophy.  As  Schiller  says:  "Meanwhile  till 
philosophy  shall  hold  together  the  structure  of 
the  world,  nature  maintains  its  doings  by  hunger 
and  by  love." 

("Einstweilen,  bis  den  Bau  der  Welt 
Philosophie  zusammenhalt 
Erhalt  sie  (die  Natur)  das  Getriebe 
Durch  Hunger  und  durch  Liebe.") 

— Die  Weltweisen. 

The  prevailing  mode  of  determining  religious 
and  moral  life  from  the  sense  of  need  rather  than 
from  its  content,  the  attempt  to  confine  all  our 
outlook,  our  whole  Weltanschauung,  within  the 
compass  of  humanity  demands  investigation. 
Against  such  meaningless  designations  of 
Christianity  as  Professor  Lyman's  declaration: 
"This  priority  of  needs  to  values  is  already  an 
element  in  the  standard  value  of  Christianity," 
it  is  gratifying  to  meet  with  the  insistence  on 
truth  as  the  time-honored  test,  also  for  Chris- 
tianity. Professor  Perry  says  in  "The  Moral 
Economy" : 

"There  is  one  test  of  religion  which  has  been  uni- 


PRAGMATISM  AND  AUTHORITY  183 

versally  applied  by  believers  and  critics  alike,  a  test 
which,  I  think,  will  shortly  appear  to  deserve  precedence 
over  all  others.  I  refer  to  the  test  of  truth.  Every 
religion  has  been  justified  to  its  believers  and  recom- 
mended to  unbelievers  on  grounds  of  evidence.  It  has 
been  verified  in  its  working,  or  attested  by  either  obser- 
vation, reflection,  revelation,  or  authority.  In  spite  of 
the  general  assent  which  this  proposition  will  doubtless 
command,  it  is  deserving  of  special  emphasis  at  the 
present  time.  Students  of  religion  have  latterly  shifted 
attention  from  its  claims  to  truth  to  its  utility  and  sub- 
jective form.  This  pragmatic  and  psychological  study 
of  religion  has  created  no  little  confusion  of  mind  con- 
cerning its  real  meaning,  and  obscured  that  which  is 
after  all  its  essential  claim — the  claim  namely  to  offer 
an  illumination  of  life." 

Maurice  remarks  at  the  conclusion  of  his  work, 
"The  Religions  of  the  World  and  their  Rela- 
tion to  Christianity"  (p.  245)  : 

"In  compliance  with  the  directions  of  Boyle,  I  sought 
for  that  which  seemed  to  be  the  most  prevailing  form 
of  unbelief  in  our  day ;  and  I  found  it  in  the  tendency  to 
look  upon  all  theology  as  having  its  origin  in  the 
spiritual  nature  and  faculties  of  man.  This  was  as- 
sumed to  be  the  explanation  of  other  systems,  why  not 
apply  it  to  Christianity.?  The  questions  we  have  asked 
are,  *Is  it  the  adequate  explanation  of  any  system.'" 
'Do  not  all  demand  another  ground  than  the  human 
one.f*'     'Is  not  Christianity  the  consistent  asserter  of 


184  AUTHORITY 

that  higher  ground?'  'Does  it  not  distinctly  and  con- 
sistently refer  every  human  feeling  and  consciousness 
to  that  ground?'  'Is  it  not  for  this  reason  able  to  in- 
terpret and  reconcile  the  other  religions  of  the  earth?' 
'Does  it  not  in  this  way  prove  itself  to  be  not  a  human 
system,  but   the  Revelation,  which  human  beings   re- 


quire 


p>  j> 


The  question,  then,  is:  Can  we  reasonably 
proceed  on  this  presupposition  which  makes  need 
the  criterion  of  objective,  normative  truth?  It 
is  generally  admitted  that  what  is  true  for  me, 
is  not  therefore  true  in  itself.  Or,  as  we  may 
put  it,  our  subjective  apprehension  of  truth  is  not 
the  same  as  the  objective  truth.  Now,  philo- 
sophic inquiries  are  made  in  search  of  principles 
by  which  reason  may  obtain  a  true  knowledge  of 
things.  It  is  therefore  essential  that  we  lay 
special  emphasis  upon  the  presuppositions  with 
which  we  begin  any  and  all  disquisitions.  We 
must  have  some  philosophic  principles  to  begin 
with  in  order  to  give  an  orderly  account  and  ex- 
planation of  the  facts  as  we  see  them.  And  both 
we  and  our  theories  must  be  judged  in  the  light  of 
our  philosophy.  It  is  therefore  a  wise  custom, 
followed  in  many  treatises,  to  devote  first  of  all 
some  discussion  to  the  presuppositions  with  which 
we  approach  the  subject;  for  as  Bettex  well 
said:   "Die  ganze   Theorie  von  der  Vorausset- 


PRAGMATISM  AND  AUTHORITY  185 

zungslosigkeit  der  Wissenschaft  beruht  auf  der 
grossen,  falschen  Voraussetzung*  dass  der 
Mensch  voraussetzungslos  sein  konne." 

We  hold  that  philosophy  proceeds  on  the  sup- 
position that  there  are  no  phenomena  without 
some  reality,  which  is  their  ground,  and  which 
appears  in  them.  These  phenomena,  being 
forms  or  expressions  of  this  objective  reality,  are 
as  such  of  course  not  that  reality  itself.  Meta- 
physics inquires  into  the  nature  of  this  objective 
reality  which  lies  behind  phenomena  as  their 
ground,  and  which  in  them  enters  into  human 
experience.  It  thus  endeavors  to  know  phe- 
nomena in  their  deepest  ground,  to  see  their 
inner  being  and  truth.  This  view,  however,  is 
wholly  discarded  by  many  contemporaries. 
Yet  without  first  settHng  these  points,  discus- 
sions between  representatives  of  different  meta- 
physical convictions  will  prove  fruitless.  We 
may,  however,  fruitfully  compare  and  contrast 
systems.  Such  reasoning,  of  course,  does  not 
create  conviction,  but  rather  corroborates  and 
establishes  views  already  held.  As  the  recogni- 
tion of  authority  is  an  act  of  faith,  we  must  not 
therefore  consider  faith  to  be  the  ground  of 
truth,  or  the  source  of  knowledge  of  truth,  but 
rather  as  a  faculty  of  the  soul  to  perceive  and 
recognize  objective  truth. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
FAITH  AND  AUTHORITY 

Dr.  H.  Bavinck  observes  in  "De  Zekerheid  des 
Geloofs"  (p.  21  ff )  : 

"Certitude  is  something  different  from  truth, 
though  closely  related  to  it.  Truth  is  agreement  be- 
tween thought  and  reality  and  expresses  the  relation 
between  the  content  of  our  consciousness  and  the  ob- 
ject of  our  knowledge  (i.  e.,  fidelity  to  reality).  The 
assurance  of  faith,  however,  does  not  express  a  rela- 
tion, but  a  quality,  a  characteristic,  a  condition  of  a 
knowing  subject.  Assurance  of  faith  obtains  when  the 
soul  reposes  perfectly  in  the  object  of  knowledge. 
Ttuth  carries  this  certitude,  but  not  every  certitude  is 
proof  of  truth." 

Elsewhere — in  "Godsdienst  en  Godgeleerheid" 
— he  remarks  in  this  connection : 

"Troelsch  recognized  rightly  that  comparative  his- 
toric studies  at  best  can  only  demonstrate  that  Chris- 
tianity is  the  highest  of  the  present  religions  relatively, 
that  there  is  at  present  no  higher  religion  than  Chris- 
tianity. Yet  it  is  not  susceptible  of  proof  that  Chris- 
tianity is  the  final  (endgiiltige)  revelation  of  God,  that 

186 


ik 


FAITH  AND  AUTHORITY       187 

Christ  is  the  Only  begotten  of  the  Father, — that  is 
simply  a  matter  of  faith.  Nature  and  history  as  such 
do  not  yield  an  absolute  standard.  It  is  the  same  in 
the  sphere  of  right,  of  morals,  or  aesthetics,  and  also 
in  the  sphere  of  religion.  The  absolute  standards 
which  sciences  use  are  derived  from  faith.  This  is 
more  and  more  perceived  and  recognized  in  theology. 
Dr.  Visscher's  recent  essay,  'Geen  Theodicee,'  treats 
the  futility  of  logical  proofs  for  the  existence  of  God. 
Just  as  formerly  the  value  of  historic-apologetic  argu- 
ments was  over-rated,  they  are  now  in  danger  of  being 
slighted,  and  the  proof  from  experience  is  likely  to  be 
considered  by  many  the  only  argument  for  the  truth 
of  Christianity.  This  is  running  to  another  extreme  of 
one-sidedness  and  exaggeration.  Experience  is  not 
conviction,  and  can  never  be  the  ground,  standard,  and 
vindication  of  revelation.  But  it  is  nevertheless  the 
way  in  which  the  Christian  religion  is  known  and  recog- 
nized by  us  in  its  absolute  character.  Rather,  the 
Christian  religion  as  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus  His  Only  Son  becomes  an  absolute  certainty  for 
us  only  by  the  way  of  saving  faith.  If  the  Christian 
religion  be  the  absolute  one,  there  can  be  no  other  way. 
And  on  the  other  hand,  if  it  had  to  be  demonstrated, 
it  would  ipso  facto  cease  to  be  the  absolute  religion. 
From  this  standpoint,  it  will  not  appear  strange,  but 
rather  quite  natural,  that  the  Gospel  of  Christ  does 
not  endeavor  to  justify  itself  before  the  human  reason. 
It  witnesses,  but  does  not  argue.  It  claims  authority, 
demands  recognition,  but  renounces  all  attempts  to  se- 
cure approval  on  the  strength  of  scientific  arguments. 


188  AUTHORITY 

Yea,  it  freely  acknowledges  that  the  cross  of  Christ 
must  seem  foolishness  to  the  prudential  wisdom  of  the 
world." 

This,  as  Bible  students  will  readily  admit,  is  a 
prominent  note  in  the  Scriptures.  This 
sovereignty  of  faith,  of  the  recognition  of  au- 
thority before  the  claims  of  reason  in  its  demand 
for  rational  explanation,  has  ever  been  and  still 
is  the  great  divide  in  religious  controversies. 
Rationalism  violates  faith  in  the  interest  of 
reason,  whereas  the  traditional  Christian  views 
have  always  emphasized  faith  as  supreme  over 
reason.  M.  Scherer  says  in  "Revue  de  Stras- 
bourg," p.  66:  "I  believe  in  authority  whenever 
I  admit  a  fact  simply  on  my  faith  in  a  witness." 
And  yet  liberal  tendencies  of  to-day  manifest  an 
increasing  disposition  to  oppose  authority  in 
moral  matters  and  to  discard  the  miracles  in  in- 
tellectual matters.  The  resort  to  subjectivism, 
Ritschlianism  and  pragmatism  have  not  im- 
proved matters.  Faith  and  authority  are  too 
closely  allied.  And  it  is  evident  that  in  subjec- 
tivism real  faith  and  authority  are  rendered  im- 
possible. Religion  is  a  metaphysico-psycho- 
logical  fact.  Its  sphere  is  the  human  personal- 
ity, but  this  is  not  its  ground,  and  therefore  can- 
not be  its  sole  explanation,  as  some  writers  think. 
Professors  Coe,  Starbuck,  and  James  have  paid 


FAITH  AND  AUTHORITY       189 

almost  exclusive  attention  to  experience,  without 
letting  objective  truth  come  to  its  right.  They 
have  subsumed  metaphysics  under  psychology. 
Men,  little  interested  in  metaphysical  study,  la- 
bor in  experimental  psychology  to  reduce  religion 
to  its  lowest  terms,  to  biological  ethics  explained 
by  physiological  functioning  of  the  organism. 
Dr.  Stanley  Hall's  endeavor  in  this  direction  has 
been  without  much  success. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  revelation  and 
religious  experience  are  correlative,  each  imply- 
ing the  other.  When  the  unseen  is  measured  by 
the  seen,  the  ideal  brought  witliin  the  compass 
of  the  actual,  and  the  ought  identified  with  what 
is,  religious,  ethical  and  spiritual  interests  lose 
their  ultimate  ground. 

In  this  materialism  of  France  this  method  is 
predominant.  Standing  firmly  on  the  facts 
seen,  the  facts  of  greater  moment  are  scoffed  at 
as  fiction.  Professor  Gustave  Le  Bon  utters  a 
wail  of  sensational  alarm  over  this  state  of  af- 
fairs. Writing  under  the  title,  "Will  Civiliza- 
tion Fade  and  Die  Out,"  in  the  New  York 
American  of  February  24,  1907,  he  says: 

"Science  has  renewed  our  ideas  and  deprived  our  re- 
ligious and  social  conceptions  of  all  authority.  Visible 
decadence  seriously  threatens  the  vitality  of  the  ma- 
jority  of  the   great  white  nations,   and  especially   of 


190  AUTHORITY 

those  known  as  the  Latin  nations, — and  really  Latin 
nations,  if  not  as  regards  their  blood,  at  least  as  re- 
gards their  traditions  and  education.  Every  day  they 
are  losing  their  initiative,  their  energy,  their  will  and 
their  capacity  to  act.  The  satisfaction  of  perpetually 
growing  material  wants  tends  to  become  their  sole 
ideal.  The  family  is  breaking  up ;  the  social  springs 
are  strained.  Discontent  and  unrest  are  spreading  in 
all  classes,  from  the  richest  to  the  poorest. 

"Like  the  ship  that  has  lost  its  compass  and  strays 
as  chance  and  winds  direct,  the  modern  man  wanders 
haphazard  through  the  spaces  formerly  peopled  by  the 
gods  and  rendered  a  desert  by  science.  He  has  lost  his 
faith,  and  with  it  his  hopes.  The  individual  is  coming 
to  be  solely  preoccupied  with  himself.  Consciences  are 
capitulating  and  morality  is  deteriorating  and  dying 
out." 

The  McAll  Mission  describes  the  situation  in 
France  as  follows: 

"Religiously,  at  the  present  moment  France  is  in  a 
condition  of  'eclipse  of  faith.'  Of  her  38,000,000  not 
over  8,000,000  or  10,000,000  at  the  outside  remain, 
in  any  practical  way,  attached  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church.  Clericalism,  discredited  at  the  polls,  and 
capitalism,  trembling  for  its  property  rights,  in  the 
presence  of  socialism,  seek,  in  unnatural  alliance,  to 
perpetuate  exhausted  superstitution,  while  socialism 
counts  its  recruits.  Among  the  working  classes,  licen- 
tiousness,   alcoholism,    and    home-life   devoid    of   moral 


FAITH  AND  AUTHORITY       191 

training,  are  rapidly  disintegrating  the  family.  Ab- 
sinthe numbers  its  victims  by  the  hundred  thousands, 
annually." 

The  French  psychologist  portrays  in  dark 
colors  the  condition  of  his  people.  What  we  are 
concerned  with  here  is  to  call  to  mind  the  "esprit 
gaulois,"  the  peculiar  trait  of  the  French  nation, 
its  lack  of  reverence, — that  negative,  critical  at- 
titude which  mocks,  jests  and  makes  cynical 
sneers  at  spiritual  things.  It  is  this  "esprit 
gaulois,"  opposing  submission  to  all  authority, 
which  dominates  the  national  life  of  France.  It 
will  recognize  no  restraint,  and  revolts  boldly 
against  an  authority  which  makes  appeal  to  God. 
Well  did  La  Fontaine  express  a  French  senti- 
ment: "Notre  ennemi  c'est  notre  maitre,  Je  vous 
le  dis  en  bon  fran9ais." 

Unbelief  thus  raises  the  ultimate  question  of 
the  supernatural.  The  issues  are  clear.  On 
neither  side  is  demonstration  or  proof  possible. 
The  eternal  cannot  be  comprehended  within 
time-limits  or  fully  expressed  in  temporal  forms. 
To  speak  in  evolutionary  fashion  of  an  eternal 
becoming,  is  to  ignore  the  fruitless  attempts  of 
the  Greeks  and  to  show  little  appreciation  of  the 
real  problem.  The  kenotic  theories  of  Thoma- 
sius,  Gess,  Ebrard  and  Martensen  endeavored 
to  solve  this  problem  by  settling  it  at  the  outset. 


192  AUTHORITY 

Cf.  an  able  and  scholarly  discussion  by  H.  C. 
Powell:  "Principle  of  the  Incarnation  with 
especial  Reference  to  the  Relation  between  our 
Lord's  Divine  Omniscience  and  His  Human 
Consciousness."  It  contains  an  interesting  dis- 
cussion of  Kant's  view  of  time  and  space  as  the 
postulates  of  the  inner  and  outer  perception. 

After  all,  change  is  in  the  hand  that  knows  no 
change.  We  may  say  that  this  world  alone  al- 
lows of  the  application  of  the  time-conception 
inasmuch  as  with  the  world's  existence  time  be- 
came in  the  world's  process.  Time  is  unthink- 
able without  the  world,  and  it  is  contradictory 
therefore  to  imagine  a  time  in  which  God  was 
without  the  world.  But  to  say  that  there  is  no 
time  thinkable  in  which  the  world  was  not  is 
simply  to  state  that  the  world  had  been  as  long 
as  it  has  been.  Without  the  Eternal  Spirit  there 
would  not  be  any  time.  Time  and  change  issue 
forth  from  eternity  and  return  to  it  for  judg- 
ment. Eternity  holds  absolute  sway  over  time 
and  change,  and  "stands  at  the  heart  of  all 
time."  This  eternity  is  the  source  of  each  mys- 
terious variation,  and  it  is  also  the  unseen  provi- 
dence which  controls  and  directs  all  the  varia- 
tions to  their  collective  end.  When  Ritschl 
says:  "What  is  Eternity  but  the  power  of  the 
spirit  over  time?"  he  simply  gave  expression  to 
the  idea  that  change  rises  from  the  changeless. 


FAITH  AND  AUTHORITY       193 

Reality  is  timeless.  What  really  is  does  not  ad- 
mit of  a  begimiing  or  an  end.  It  is  therefore 
begging  the  question  to  endeavor  to  explain 
eternity  in  terms  of  time; — it  is  a  contradiction 
in  terms.  Equally  contradictory  is  the  effort  to 
explain  reality  by  its  appearance  in  time.  The 
"tertium  quid,"  the  undefined  and  undefinable, 
does  not  arise  from,  else  it  could  not  give  rise  to, 
the  temporal  world. 

"The  rose-seed  holds  the  glory  of  the  rose 
Within  its  heart  sweet  summer  fragrance  bides. 
And  there  each  petal's  tender  blush-tint  hides 
Till  June  bids  nature  all  her  charms  disclose. 

"The  sleeping  infant's  heart  and  brain  may  hold 
The  glorious  power  that  in  future  years 
Shall  move  the  listening  world  to  smiles  and  tears. 
'Tis  life  potential  that  the  days  unfold. 

"One  act  of  Will  divine,  and  lo !  the  seed 
Of  growth  was  sown  in  young  creation's  heart, 
From  Life  Eternal  hath  all  life  its  start. 
And  endless  change  as  changeless  law  we  read." 

A  true  explanation  of  the  world  and  history 
is  therefore  in  its  nature  revelation,  to  be  appre- 
hended only  by  faith.  No  painstaking  scrutiny 
of  the  facts  of  reality  will  ever  disclose  the  truth 
that   stands   over   it,    and   pervades   it.     Levy- 


194  AUTHORITY 

Briihl  says  well:  "Une  science  ne  peut  etre  nor- 
mative en  tant  que  theorique  (p.  14  La  morale 
et  la  science  des  moeurs) .  The  eye  of  faith 
perceives  that  higher  order  in  which  the  facts  of 
nature,  our  knowledge  and  ethical  norms  are 
reconciled.  Professor  Dewey  in  the  very  at- 
tempt to  argue  in  his  celebrated  essay  the  "Logi- 
cal Conditions  of  a  Scientific  Treatment  of  Mo- 
rality" admits  that  the  factor  of  "character" 
which  is  to  be  in  reciprocal  determination  with 
the  "situation  judged"  is  not  so  evident  as  is  the 
latter.  Both  factors,  however,  involve  upon 
closer  analysis  psychological  and  sociological 
studies  which  in  view  of  the  complexity  of  the 
subject  as  well  as  of  the  unanalyzable  normative 
element  prove  the  effort  to  be  utterly  futile. 


1 


CHAPTER  XIX 
KANT  ON  AUTHORITY 

Because  Kant  failed  to  give  the  categorical 
imperative  specific  form,  and  because  the  norma- 
tive principle  of  his  ethics  lacks  content,  the  sage 
of  Konigsberg  has  been  severely  criticized  by 
HofFding.  The  Danish  scholar  uses  this  point 
of  the  Kantian  ethics  to  attack  what  is  strongest 
and  most  true  in  Kant's  ethical  teaching, 
namely,  its  affirmation  of  an  objective,  authori- 
tative nonn,  which  alone  makes  possible  a  cate- 
gorical imperative.  We  are  not  unmindful  here 
of  the  fact  that  Kant  in  proclaiming  the  cate- 
gorical imperative  of  the  practical  reason  as  the 
final  authority  of  duty  thereby  declares  reason 
to  legislate  within  the  soul  by  its  own  right,  i.  e., 
proclaimed  in  ethics  autonomy.  We,  however, 
feel  that  the  moral  law  emanated  from  God,  hav- 
ing its  ground  in  His  essential  Being.  Thus 
only  can  we  account  for  the  unconditional  claim 
on  man's  obedience.  HofFding  says  in  his 
"Problems  of  Philosophy": 

"In  our  estimation  of  worth  and  our  purposes  the 
inner  nature  of  our  feeling  and  will  is   revealed.     As 

195 


196  AUTHORITY 

the  concept  of  purpose  depends  on  the  concept  of  worth, 
so  also  the  concept  of  the  norm  depends  on  the  con- 
cept of  purpose.  The  norm  is  the  rule  for  the  ac- 
tivity which  is  necessary  to  attain  the  purpose.  It  was 
a  fatal  thing  for  the  treatment  of  the  problem  of 
worth  when  Immanuel  Kant  reversed  the  relation  and 
tried  to  derive  the  concept  of  purpose  from  the  concept 
of  the  norm  (of  law).  This  is  a  psychological  im- 
possibility." 

It  is  well  after  all,  that  Kant's  categorical  im- 
perative remains  an  impersonal  dictum  without 
content,  for  it  has  ever  been  the  fatal  blunder- 
ing of  casuistry  to  define  specific  duties  and  to 
enjoin  them  as  obligatory.  To  the  individual  is 
left  the  application  of  the  ethical  law,  as  he  feels 
it,  and  as  it  presents  itself  to  him.  Hoff  ding, 
however,  makes  here  the  fatal  blunder  of  lapsing 
onto  descriptive  science  by  insisting  that  the  con- 
cept of  purpose  cannot  be  derived  from  the  con- 
cept of  norm  (of  law).  This  is  to  ignore  the 
fact  that  ethics  is  a  normative,  not  a  descriptive, 
science.  By  defining  norm  "as  the  rule  for 
the  activity  necessary  to  attain  the  purpose,"  the 
normative  element  becomes  a  fiction,  inasmuch 
as  the  norms  are  severally  made  dependent  on 
the  agents  who  adopt  them  merely  to  reach  cer- 
tain ends  which  they  do  pursue.  Indeed!  not 
always  those  which  they  ought  to  pursue.  This 
procedure  gives  a  method  rather  than  a  normative 


KANT  ON  AUTHORITY  197 

standard.  It  is  psychologically  impossible  to 
explain  the  sentiment  of  ought  from  what  is. 
The  feeling  of  ought  is  an  original,  unanalyzable 
fact.  The  revelation  of  God  at  the  heart  of  man 
is  the  original  source  of  all  religion,  and  also  of 
the  original  source  of  all  obligations  and  duties, 
of  whatever  specific  content  they  may  be.  No 
strictly  rational  ethics,  therefore,  is  possible. 
We  cannot,  even  in  theory,  be  good  without  God. 
This,  however,  is  the  endeavor  of  "Ethical  Cul- 
ture." Martensen  well  observes  in  this  regard: 
"While  religion  without  morality  cannot  count 
upon  many  advocates,  morality  without  religion 
finds  no  lack  of  such."  He  remarks  that  "this 
abstract  autonomic  morality  only  appears  at 
those  seasons  when  there  is  also  religious  decay." 
("Christian  Ethics,"  p.  15,  17.)  The  postulate, 
involved  in  every  ethics,  that  the  individual  des- 
tiny at  best  coincides  with  the  larger  good,  and 
conversely,  assumes  a  theistic  basis.  And  so 
does  the  originality  of  the  moral  sentiment  in  its 
commanding  authority.  Ethics  discloses  what 
is  before  us  and  behind  us,  the  moral  nature  of 
what  bears  us  and  what  leads  us.  What  ought 
to  be  is  felt  to  be  the  basis  and  ground  as  well 
as  the  goal  of  all  that  is.  In  the  science  of 
ethics,  first  and  final  causes  are  seen  to  be  one; 
and  thus  in  the  ethical  nature  the  heart  of  reality 
is  laid  bare.     It  is  safe  to  predict  that,  in  our  age 


198  AUTHORITY 

of  indifference  towards  philosophical  discipline, 
we  may  expect  a  re-awakening  of  metaphysical 
studies  through  interest  in  ethical  questions. 
Only  when  ethics  rests  on  the  religious  basis  of 
theistic  belief  have  the  English  words  "duty" 
and  "ought"  meaning,  in  that  they  bring  in  the 
One  who  is  Creator  and  Judge,  to  whom  is  due, 
to  whom  is  owed,  to  whom  we  pray  that  He  "for- 
give us  our  debts  as  we  forgive  our  debtors." 
Eduard  von  Hartmann  says  in  "Das  Religiose 
Bewusstsein  der  Menschheit,"  "All  facts  point 
to  the  circumstance  that  the  ethical  consciousness 
of  man  has  developed  exclusively  on  the  basis  of 
religious  conviction,  that  ethics  nowhere  has 
arisen  without  this,  and  that  in  its  specific  color- 
ing it  has  everywhere  been  conditioned  and  de- 
termined by  religion."  To  conceive  of  the  pur- 
pose for  which  we  are  created,  "the  cliief  end  of 
man  to  glorify  God  and  enjoy  Him  forever," 
affords  an  objective  authoritative  norm.  The 
impossibility  of  its  psychological  explanation 
only  corroborates  the  fact  of  its  being  a  pri- 
mordial rule  inherent  in  the  nature  of  God.  But 
a  rule  which  we  form  as  a  consequence  of  our 
own  desires  can  never  figure  as  such  a  norm  for 
such  a  rule  would  be  merely  describing  the  func- 
tioning of  our  desires  in  our  purposes,  the  record 
of  a  subjective,  unethical  condition  of  fact. 
Hoff  ding,  in  common  with  the  general  tendency 


KANT  ON  AUTHORITY  199 

of  our  day  to  give  wide  scope  to  theories  of 
values,  inclines  to  subjective  and  individualistic 
views,  which  logically  result  in  individualistic 
pleasure-pursuits.  Against  this  tendency,  the 
rigorism  of  Kant's  ethical  law  stands  as  a  whole- 
some truth.  The  ethical  life,  far  from  being 
a  primrose  way  determined  by  transient  pleas- 
ures, should  be  accepted  as  an  exacting  task 
under  the  demands  of  the  Infinite!  We  are  to 
learn  to  will  our  duty,  not  to  shape  our  duties  to 
our  wills,  for  then  what  we  call  duties  become 
simply  our  desires.  Not  whatever  satisfies  de- 
sire is  good.  Desire  itself  is  to  be  brought  to  a 
test.  As  Professor  Palmer  tentatively  puts  it: 
"Pleasure  probably  is  nothing  else  but  the  sense 
that  some  one  of  our  functions  has  been  appro- 
priately exercised.  Every  time,  then,  that  a 
vohtion  has  been  carried  forth  in  the  complex 
world  and  there  conducted  to  its  mark  (and 
taken  its  inward  effect)  a  gratified  feeling 
arises."  Pleasure,  then,  should  rather  be  treated 
as  an  incident  expression  of  the  proper  discharge 
of  our  function,  our  duty,  "given  us  by  some- 
thing which  we  cannot  alter,  fully  estimate,  or 
with  damage  evade." 

Hoffding  well  declares  it  a  psychological  im- 
possibility to  derive  the  concept  of  purpose  from 
the  concept  of  law.  Instead,  however,  of  at- 
tempting to  subsume  the  law  under  its  contents. 


200 


AUTHORITY 


which  are  but  its  specific  expressions,  showing 
the  way  in  which  we  get  this  experiential 
evaluation  of  the  law,  he  might  rather  have 
paused  to  reflect  whether  or  not  the  ethical  law 
of  right  or  wrong  is  unanalyzable  because  origi- 
nal, and  have  recognized  that  God  is  the  ultimate 
lawgiver  and  authority,  as  of  old ! 


CHAPTER  XX 

MATERIALISTIC  TENDENCIES  AND 
RITSCHLIANISM 

Although  of  late  "Christian  Science"  has  had 
a  large  following,  and  although  idealistic  phi- 
losophy has  found  favor  with  many,  yet  it  is  but 
natural  that  in  an  age  of  material  achievements 
the  slighted  factor  should  be  the  spiritual  world. 
Characteristic  in  this  regard  are  the  titles  of  the 
writings  of  Romanes.  "A  Candid  Examina- 
tion of  Theism,"  by  Physicus,  in  which  descrip- 
tive science  holds  him  in  a  hard,  grinding,  causal 
mechanism  without  outlook  upon  a  spiritual 
power  behind,  in,  and  beyond  it.  "A  Candid 
Examination  of  Rehgion,"  by  Metaphysicus,  in 
which  the  facts  of  the  inner  Hfe  are  given  full 
recognition,  and  in  which  he  feels  himself  again 
in  possession  of  a  Christian  Weltanschauung. 
These  books  and  the  history  of  Romanes  are  well 
known  and  need  no  comment.  It  is  also  a  mat- 
ter of  general  knowledge  that  the  consistent 
atheist  Nietzsche  did  away  with  "das  Seelend- 
ing"  and  reduced  the  inner  life  to  a  "Begleiter- 
scheinung."  Yet  the  most  prevalent  mode  of 
thought  reserves  for  the  spiritual  a  place  only  in 

201 


202  AUTHORITY 

subjectivism.  It  is  indeed  a  saddening  result 
when  modern  scholarship  is  compelled  to  repeat  as 
Christian  what  Goethe  made  Faust  exclaim  with 
unspeakable  heartache:  "The  message  indeed  I 
hear,  but  I  lack  the  faith.  The  miracle  is  the  fa- 
vorite child  of  faith."  "Die  Botschaft  hor'  ich 
wohl,  allein  mir  felht  der  Glaube:  Das  Wunder 
ist  des  Glaubens  liebstes  Kind." 

Loisy,  as  well  as  Harnack,  distinguishes  be- 
tween the  Easter-message  and  the  Easter-faith. 
The  message  is  the  objective,  historic  fact,  an 
empty  tomb :  "He  is  not  here,"  and  faith  merely 
concludes,  or  creates  the  conviction  "He  is 
risen."  The  risen  Christ  is  an  object  of  faith 
(objet  de  foi,  in  the  sense  of  faith-product,  not 
as  lying  at  the  basis  of  it,  and  perceived  by 
faith),  not  a  factual  reality  (realite  de  fait). 
The  whole  believing  atmosphere  of  the  early 
Church,  this  faith-state  as  fact  appeals  again  to 
the  faith  of  others.  It  is  from  faith  to  faith,  but 
without  objective  ground  in  historic  fact. 
Loisy's  polemic  books,  "Autour  d'un  petit  Livre," 
and  "L'Evangile  et  I'Eglise,"  are  able  presenta- 
tions of  the  current  subjective  views  which  at- 
tempt to  explain  away  the  supernatural  basis  of 
Christianity.  Neither  Loisy  nor  Harnack  is  an 
approved  representative  of  Catholic  or  Protes- 
tant Christianity.  Yet,  the  excommunicated 
Abbot  retains  more  ground  for  authority  than 


RITSCHLIANISM  203 

the  able  church-historian,  whose  views  lead  to 
individualism. 

Exact  science  will  not  allow  an  objective  fact 
which  it  cannot  explain,  and  the  method  of  ex- 
act science  has  been  carried  over  into  historical 
study.  If,  after  all,  sidelights  have  been  util- 
ized and  all  circumstances  bared,  history  does  not 
explain  the  Christ  as  portrayed  by  the  records 
and  by  the  effects  which  He  produced,  then,  in- 
stead of  concluding  that  mere  historic  facts  can- 
not explain  Him,  the  explanation  of  the  cause 
of  the  world's  greatest  event  is  sought  in  a  pious 
fiction.  Christ  is  the  explanation  of  Christianity, 
and  admittedly  cannot  be  explained  by  circum- 
stance and  earthly  surroundings.  The  very  at- 
tempt to  explain  His  world-transforming  power 
from  faith-elements  witnesses  to  the  inadequacy 
of  the  historic  method  to  explain  Him.  He  is 
all-encompassing  and  future-regarding.  No 
record  of  the  past,  therefore,  will  contain  any- 
thing else  than  an  earthly  Christ.  What  a  tre- 
mendous exercise  of  faith  in  the  mystery  of  per- 
sonality is  it  for  Harnack,  on  the  strength  of 
that  mystery,  to  ascribe  to  Christ  the  miracle  of 
sinlessness.  This  is  the  pious  fiction  of  the 
"Zeitgeschichtliche  Methode."  Calvin's  word 
deserves  repeating  here:  "Totus  Christus  sed 
non  totum  quod  in  eo  est."  The  earthly  Christ 
was  not  the  all  of  Christ.     And  even  the  earthly 


204  AUTHORITY 

Christ  in  sinlessness  defies  classification  or  ex- 
planation according  to  these  faithless  methods. 
A  record  of  beginnings  does  not  change  the 
nature  of  the  product,  the  successive  phases  of 
which  are  described  in  history,  any  more  than 
life  is  explained  by  the  development  and  func- 
tioning of  a  living  organism.  In  biological 
science,  life  itself  is  not  subsumed  under  the  ru- 
bric of  development,  circumstance  or  functioning. 
The  elementary  cell  has  its  "Eigengestaltsam- 
keit"  which  descriptive  science  simply  takes  as  a 
fact.  No  more  should  Christianity  with  Christ 
as  its  center  be  identified  with  its  development, 
the  circumstances  under  which  it  took  rise  or  its 
subsequent  history.  If  it  is  out  of  time,  it  will 
go  in  time,  and  will  deserve  the  mephistophelian 
sneer  at  earthly  things: 

"Alles  was  entsteht 
1st  werth  dass  es  zu  Grunde  geht." 

It  could  not  inspire  faith,  it  would  lack  its  com- 
manding authority,  it  would  require  verification 
from  the  things  of  this  world,  instead  of  ruling 
at  their  hearts  and  center.  Christ  is  in  history 
what  a  priori  elements  are  in  individual  experi- 
ence. When  an  un- Christian  temper  through 
lack  of  faith  in  this  spiritual  principle  imperi- 
ously demands  demonstration  of  the  world's  spir- 


RITSCHLIANISM  205 

itual  events  in  terms  of  the  seen,  we  reply  effec- 
tively, "Faith  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped 
for,  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen"  (Heb. 
xi,  1).  This  fact  has  made  some  historians  re- 
tire into  subjectivism;  which  leads  to  an  individ- 
ualistic interpretation  of  Christianity  and  threat- 
ens to  destroy  both  tradition  and  authority. 

The  Ritschlian  school  has  not  been  able  to  stem 
the  tide  of  subjectivism,  but  has  rather  furthered 
it.  In  spite  of  Harnack's  tribute  to  Ritschl  as 
the  one  who  saved  Protestantism  from  this  dis- 
integrating tendency,  the  process  is  still  going 
on  alarmingly.  The  popular  mind  comes  to 
think  of  the  Christian  religion  as  a  pious  senti- 
ment, and  experience  of  ethical  enthusiasm  and 
moral  endeavor,  as  consecrated  good-will  in  the 
service  of  mankind,  as  faith  in  the  eternal  right 
as  the  condition  for  self-realization  in  disciple- 
ship  of  the  Christ,  in  the  following  of  our  innate 
religious  instincts.  The  application  of  a  nor- 
mative standard  to  a  matter  so  purely  private 
and  individualistic  is  considered  difficult  and 
needless.  Should  no  objective  reality  corre- 
spond to  our  deep-rooted  religious  experiences, 
we  are  nevertheless  none  the  worse  for  indulging 
in  these  pious  sentiments.  They  relax  the  ten- 
sion of  life's  struggle  and  relieve  its  grim  real- 
ity. Metaphysics  having  been  denied  its  place 
in  religion,  psychology  tries  to  comfort  us  with 


206  AUTHORITY 

a  last  apologetic  word  in  behalf  of  the  retaining 
of  Christianity. 

These  ideas  easily  gain  access  to  the  minds  of 
modern  preachers.  In  a  recent  book,  "The  Dy- 
namic of  Christianity,"  by  E.  M.  Chapman,  the 
following  remark  is  made:  "The  ultimate 
source  of  authority  is  not  an  objective  thing.  It 
has  never  been  fixed,  codified,  or  finished!" 
Strange  confusion  of  ideas  in  popular  theology! 
A  thing  is  not  objective  because  it  is  not  fixed, 
codified,  or  finished!  From  the  nature  of  the 
case  it  cannot  be  finished  in  time,  although  it  re- 
quires at  least  some  form  in  which  to  express  it- 
self in  time.  The  New  England  pastor,  how- 
ever, fortunately  holds  to  what  he  calls  "that 
chief  practical  charisma  of  the  Spirit  known  as 
common  sense,"  and  believes  "the  conscience  of 
Chi'istendom,  educated  by  the  Bible,  by  the  ex- 
perience of  the  Chm-ch,  by  the  partial  light  issu- 
ing from  the  ethnic  faiths  and  applied  to  specific 
cases  of  conduct  by  human  reason  acting  with  a 
full  consciousness  of  its  limitations,  cannot  go 
far  wrong." 

More  harmful  are  the  reasonings  which  would 
have  us  discount  and  repudiate  the  agencies  and 
manifestations  of  Christ,  i.  e.,  historic  Chris- 
tianity, on  the  ground  that  they  are  not  Christ 
Himself.  This  is  very  much  like  saying  that  the 
study  of  language,  in  any  or  all  its  forms,  may 


RITSCHLIANISM  207 

be  discarded  because  language  is  only  the  expres- 
sion of  thought,  not  thought  itself.  And  yet, 
without  language  thought  would  not  be  possible. 
Such  a  confusing  opposition  of  Christ  to  Chris- 
tianity and  Bible  may  be  seen  in  the  following 
passage  of  Dr.  Jacobus,  Dean  of  Hartford  Semi- 
nary for  religious  workers: 

"It  is  upon  Jesus  Himself  that  the  authority  of  life 
and  all  its  religion  rests  to-day.  There  are  those  who 
say  the  authority  of  religion  rests  with  the  church,  and 
that  all  we  can  hope  to  do  as  workers  and  teachers  in 
religious  things  is  to  represent  the  church.  But  there 
are  those  who  push  this  matter  further  back  and  say 
the  authority  of  the  church  rests  in  the  creeds,  and 
that  all  we  need  to  do  is  to  keep  the  creeds  intelligible 
to  men.  But  there  are  still  others  who  go  further 
back  and  say  the  authority  of  the  creeds  rests  with  the 
Bible,  and  all  that  we  have  to  do  is  to  keep  the  Bible 
taught  and  preached  to  men.  But  you  see  this  simply 
presses  the  question  back  one  further  step  for  its  final 
answers,  because,  when  we  ask  where  rests  the  authority 
of  the  Bible,  the  only  answer  to  this  question  is,  it 
rests  with  Jesus  Christ  whom  it  contains." 

In  this  typical  instance  of  popular  fallacy  the 
church,  the  creeds,  and  the  Bible  are  the  articu- 
late members  of  Christianity  which  the  lecturer 
desires  to  push  back  and  out  of  sight,  to  get  to 
Christ  as  the  final  authority.  As  if  Christ  did 
not  buttress  Christianity!     Why  labor  to  find 


208  AUTHORITY 

Him  different  from,  and  elsewhere  than  where 
He  admittedly  and  professedly  is  to  be  found? 
The  Christian  Church  is  Christ  operating  in  his- 
tory, as  reflected  in  the  mind  of  men,  "the  collec- 
tive Christ."  Christian  experience  as  a  witness 
is  formulated  in  the  creeds.  Both  may  be  tested 
by  the  perfect  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  the 
Bible,  professedly  God's  book,  the  only  perfect 
book  as  Christ  is  professedly  the  God-man,  the 
only  perfect  man.  The  abuse  of  that  judicial 
authority,  of  which  every  individual  is  a  reposi- 
tory, in  refusing  to  exercise  it  in  agreement  with 
the  Church  to  which  one  owes  allegiance,  on  the 
paltry  plea  that  the  experience  of  Christ  is  first, 
only  serves  to  call  in  question  the  reality  of  one's 
share  in  such  an  experience.  The  vagueness  of 
this  position  certainly  makes  Christian  experi- 
ence itself  an  undefined  and  meaningless  term. 

As  if  for  the  benefit  of  this  religious  dean,  the 
eminent  Congregational  scholar.  Dr.  Forsyth, 
writes  in  the  Contemporary  Review : 

"It  is  meaningless  to  say  that  Christianity  is  a  life 
and  therefore  independent  of  dogma.  The  pearl  of 
Christianity  is  a  life  hved  with  Christ  in  God.  But  that 
phrase  teems  with  dogma.  Christianity,  moreover,  was 
a  life  introduced  under  definite  conditions  of  history 
and  thought,  and  therefore  it  must  have  a  dogma.  It 
has  always  existed  in  such  conditions.  It  is  not  a  life 
in  vacuo.    Dogmatic  nescience  or  hostility  leaves  us  with 


RITSCHLIANISM  209 

little  beyond  reverie  lost  in  the  vague,  or  skepticism 
solvent  and  fatal."  (Church,  State,  Dogma  and  Edu- 
cation.) 

Indeed,  were  Dr.  Jacobus  to  formulate  his 
position,  though  we  do  not  look  for  theological 
inclinations  in  a  school  for  religious  workers,  he 
would  land  in  a  species  of  theology,  which  the 
dean  of  Montauban,  Emile  Doumergue  calls 
"Fideisme."  In  the  essays  "Les  etapes  du 
fideisme"  and  "Le  dernier  mot  du  fideisme"  by 
Emile  Doumergue  we  are  told  that  INIenegoz  as- 
serts the  existence  of  true  faith,  saving  faith, 
without  any  knowledge  of  Christ,  nay!  that  this 
true  faith  involves  the  decisive  rejection  of 
Christ.  This  religious  agnosticism  advances  also 
to  the  position  of  a  denial  of  the  existence  of 
God.  It  thereby  approaches  Poulin's  proclama- 
tion: "True  religion  is  to  have  none.  The 
propagation  of  the  religious  idea  is  at  the  cost  of 
the  acceptance  of  the  idea  of  the  non-existence 
of  God."  (Poulin;  "Religion  and  Socialism.") 
Against  this  sentimental  liberalism  we  affirm  with 
Liddon : 

"Religion  to  support  itself,  must  rest  consciously  on 
its  object:  the  intellectual  apprehension  of  that  object 
as  true  is  an  integral  element  of  religion,  in  other  words, 
religion  is  practically  inseparable  from  theology." 
(Divinity  of  our  Lord.) 


210  AUTHORITY 

It  is  the  object  of  faith  that  deserves  attention 
rather  than  the  subject  of  experience,  for  the 
object  is  basal  to  the  experience  which  it  calls 
forth.  The  message  of  the  Church  should  con- 
sist in  proclaiming  its  belief  rather  than  in  tell- 
ing of  its  experience.  The  Church  has  in  trust 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  as  the  objective 
truth.  Indeed,  guardian  of  the  truth  as  once  de- 
livered unto  the  saints,  its  message,  the  truth,  is 
the  matter  of  most  importance.  And  this  is 
guaranteed  neither  by  subjective  experience  nor 
by  cui  bono  considerations. 

Dr.  Francis  Hall  gives  the  following  texts, 
bearing  either  directly  or  indirectly  upon  the 
grounds,  nature  and  limits  of  the  teaching  au- 
thority of  the  church  and  her  ministers :  Matthew 
16:16-18;  18:17.  Mark  16:15.  Luke  10:16. 
John  14:16;  17:26;  16:13-1,5;  20:21.  Acts  1:2, 
3;  2:1-4,  14-36;  6:2;  15:28;  16:4;  20:28.  Ro- 
man 12:4-8.  I  Cor.  4:1-2;  11:23;  12:28,  29; 
15:1-3;  16:16.  II  Cor.  2:9-10;  4:1-3;  10:8. 
Gal.  1:1,  8-12;  2:6-11.  Eph.  1:22-23;  3:2- 
11;  4:11-16.  Col.  3-16.  I  Thess.  V:  11,  12,  20, 
21.  I  Tim.  1:1,  3,  4;  3:15;  6:3-5,  20.  II  Tim. 
1 :13, 14 ;  2 :2 ;  4 :2.  Titus  1  :l-3,  5,  7,  9,  13 ;  2 :15 ; 
3 :10,  11.  Hebrews  13 :7,  17.  I  Pet.  5  :l-3.  II 
Pet.  3:2.  II  John:  10  and  Jude  3.  The  reading 
of  these  commissions  to  the  Christian  ministry  is 
especially  to  be  commended  to  our  new  brand  of 


RITSCHLIANISM  211 

pastors,  who  devote  themselves  at  the  expense  of 
their  patent  duties  to  philanthropic,  sociological, 
and  political  activities.  In  thus  deviating  from 
their  ministerial  calling  by  the  assumption  of  the 
work  of  social  workers  their  inefficiency  in  the 
secular  fold  becomes  manifest  by  the  side  of  those 
trained  along  these  lines.  By  putting  a  secular 
demand  upon  the  clergy  the  preparatory  train- 
ing for  the  ministry  has  actually  undergone  in 
most  secularized  institutions  an  important 
change.  When  in  Princeton  Theological  Semi- 
nary similar  demands  were  urged,  the  great 
Princeton  Divine,  Dr.  Francis  Landay  Patton, 
fortunately  vindicated  the  Seminary's  curricu- 
lum as  designed  to  prepare  ministers  "to  rightly 
divide  the  Word."  Indeed,  it  is  a  sad  outlook 
for  the  ministerial  profession  if,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  hberal  teachings,  it  is  allowed  to  become 
a  dabbling  in  the  range  of  social  activities,  ethi- 
cized  by  such  scant  Christian  teaching  as  still  sur- 
vives in  these  circles. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
SCIENCE  AND  FAITH 

No  Weltanschauung  is  complete,  no  philosophy 
entirely  satisfactory  in  every  detail.  The 
plumb-line  of  the  finite  intellect  cannot  measure 
the  Infinitude  in  which  it  finds  itself.  In  the 
end,  therefore,  we  shall  be  brought  before  alter- 
natives, and  we  may  well  face  them  at  the  start. 
Ballard  makes  prominent  the  alternatives  in- 
volved in  Christian  or  non- Christian  systems, 
and  urges  a  choice  of  them  in  his  able  apologetic 
work,  "The  Miracles  of  Unbelief." 

There  is,  in  fact,  no  more  lamentable  disposi- 
tion than  the  one  which  is  content  to  hold  by  im- 
plication at  least  that  there  may  be  any  number 
of  truths;  which  is  not  merely  content  to  hold 
that  there  are  different  aspects  of  truth,  truth 
differently  apprehended;  but  which  holds  op- 
posing views  true  under  the  claim  that  everybody 
is  entitled  to  his  own  opinion.  Though  this  be 
conceded  in  the  abstract,  to  act  upon  it  betrays 
an  indifference  to  truth  as  such  that  kills  all 
search  for  it  and  shows  lack  of  confidence  in  it. 
The  liberalism  which  proclaims  "laisser  aller," 
"laisser  faire,"  as  profound  wisdom,  reveals  not 

213 


SCIENCE  AND  FAITH  213 

only  an  intellectual  but  a  moral  indifference  to 
opinion. 

This  temper,  of  course,  does  not  obtain  among 
trained,  academic  minds.  Among  these  the  pre- 
vailing lines  of  thought  are  different.  Truth  is 
held  to  be  beyond  our  reach  (in  negative  theolo- 
gies) ;  or  incomplete  and  inadequate  (evolution- 
ary views) ;  or  again  the  limitations  (not  impos- 
sibility) of  our  knowledge  is  emphasized.  Some 
dwell  upon  our  inabihty  to  obtain  objective  certi- 
tude (subjectivism),  and  others  hold  that  there 
are  different  kinds  of  truth  (plurahsm).  The 
most  insiduous  and  subtle  mode  of  thought,  how- 
ever, is  that  which  enthrones  need  as  the  ultimate 
criterion  of  truth  before  which  inquiry  should  be 
silent.  We  shall,  therefore,  treat  of  this  at  some 
length,  since  it  involves  the  subjective  stand- 
point of  the  other  views,  although  the  values  de- 
termined by  the  satisfaction  of  need  are  held  to 
correspond  to  objective  reality. 

The  very  nomenclature  of  this  mode  of  thought 
is  suggestive  in  that  it  speaks  of  truth  as  "cor- 
responding to  objective  reality,"  instead  of  "re- 
sulting from  objective,  disclosed  reahty."  Pro- 
fessor James  tries  with  great  ingenuity  to  argue 
the  former,  in  which  circumstance  only  the  dis- 
pensing of  its  correspondence  is  needed  in  order 
to  leave  the  freest  scope  to  Pragmatism.  He  is 
not  quite  assured  of  his  point,  however.     In  a 


214  AUTHORITY 

foot-note  on  p.  17  in  "The  Meaning  of  Truth" 
he  says :  "One  may  easily  get  lost  in  verbal  mys- 
teries about  the  difference  between  quality  of 
feeling  and  feeling  of  quality,  between  receiving 
and  reconstructing  the  knowledge  of  reality." 
It  is  evident  that  a  disclosure  of  reality  is  always 
an  affair  of  individual  apprehension. 

If  faith  is  the  recognition  of  authority,  exer- 
cised reasonably,  not  instinctively  as  led  by  feel- 
ing, then  the  question  concerning  the  forms  of 
authority  to  which  we  shall  give  assent  must  be 
settled  by  reason.  Much  more  intricate,  how- 
ever, does  the  question  become,  when  we  put  the 
analogous  inquiry  concerning  the  relation  of  the 
sense  of  need  to  the  true,  real  need  of  man  as 
man.  Orthodox  Christianity  has  always  dwelt 
upon  the  fact  that  religion,  as  a  result  of  the 
soul's  relation  to  God,  is  an  individual  affair, 
and  therefore  it  has  laid  stress  upon  inner  experi- 
ences and  has  exalted  conscience  and  reason. 
But  it  has  never  gone  so  far  as  to  make  these  hu- 
man experiences  the  final  authority,  because  if  re- 
ligious knowledge  requires  content  occasioned  by 
some  object,  much  more  does  the  religious  senti- 
ment. Feeling  is  not  creative;  it  is  merely  the 
capacity  to  receive  impressions.  There  is,  there- 
fore, no  guarantee  for  the  religious  life,  except  on 
the  basis  of  an  acknowledged  objective  norm, 
in  the  recognition  of  God's  truth.     Apart  from 


SCIENCE  AND  FAITH  215 

the  impossibility  of  demonstrating  the  existence 
of  things  without,  at  least  as  perfectly  as  the 
reality  of  the  psychical  representations,  an  objec- 
tive norm  is  required  to  set  in  order  our  experi- 
ence as  rational  beings.  History  has  shown  hu- 
man judgment  to  be,  as  it  is  individually  felt  to 
be,  inadequate,  faulty  and  unreliable.  Profes- 
sor James  acknowledges  this  in  his  "Varieties 
of  Religious  Experience,"  but  only  to  invite  re- 
turn to  it,  as  residing  in,  or  guided  by  utility,  as 
this  is  apprehended  by  men.     He  says: 

"Origin  in  immediate  intuition,  origin  in  pontifical 
authority,  origin  in  supernatural  revelation,  as  by 
vision,  hearing  or  unaccountable  impression ;  origin  in 
direct  possession  by  a  higher  spirit,  expressing  itself  in 
prophecy  and  warning;  origin  in  automatic  utterances 
generally, — these  origins  have  been  stock  warrants  for 
the  truth  of  one  opinion  after  another  which  we  find 
represented  in  religious  history.  The  medical  mate- 
rialists are  therefore  only  so  many  belated  dogmatists 
neatly  turning  the  tables  on  their  predecessors  by  using 
the  criterion  of  origin  in  a  destructive  instead  of  an 
accreditive  way." 

And  again: 

"Not  its  origin,  but  the  way  in  which  it  works  on  the 
whole,  is  Dr.  Maudsley's  final  test  of  belief.  This  is 
our  own  empiricist  criterion,  and  this  criterion  the  stout- 
est  insisters    on   supernatural    origin   have   also   been 


216  AUTHORITY 

forced  to  use  in  the  end."      (H.  Maudsley,  "Natural 
Causes  and  Supernatural  Seemings.") 

This  is  exactly  what  we  do  not  understand  by 
the  final  authority,  an  assent  to  which  is  faith. 
Faith  is  not  born  of  things  seen,  authority  not 
recognized  after  we  have  seen  how  expedient  its 
commands  are.  Those  who  insist  on  super- 
natural origin,  are  forced  to  use  for  verification  in 
apologetic  argument  the  same  world-field  in  time 
and  to  abide  by  the  criterion  "the  way  in  which  it 
works  on  the  whole."  But  the  convictions  were 
not  derived  from  the  survey,  not  brought  about 
by  argument.  It  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  to 
establish  one's  own  authority.  After  assent  has 
been  given,  we  cannot  further  accredit  the  au- 
thority upon  which  it  rests.  All  we  can  do  is  to 
find  corroboration  for  the  reasonableness  of  our 
act  of  faith.  (Cf.  "Is  Proverbs  Utilitarian?" 
In  the  January  Number  of  the  Bibliotheca 
Sacra,  1907.) 

The  suggestive,  plain  title  of  Dr.  Maudsley's 
essay  reduces  the  supernatural  to  seemings,  and 
proclaims  the  natural  only  as  cause.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  on  this  presupposition  no 
other  guarantee  is  left.  But — as  we  have  ob- 
served— the  existence  of  the  natural  world  is  no 
more  proved  than  is  the  reality  of  the  represen- 
tations of  our  psychic  life.     As  Professor  Ru- 


SCIENCE  AND  FAITH  217 

dolph  Eucken  observes  in  "Das  Wesen  der  Re- 
ligion" (p.  5)  :  "To  religion  surely  belongs  the 
reality  of  another  world,  above  the  one  we  know 
through  sensuous  experience.  For  an  imma- 
nent religion,  that  vague  and  inadequate  notion 
which  defies  this  world,  is  a  pitiful  contradic- 
tion." The  logical  application  of  this,  both  to 
the  sphere  of  inner  experiences  and  the  world  of 
outer  experiences,  is  not  only  analogical,  but  true 
to  the  experiences  themselves.  Dr.  H.  Visscher, 
in  urging  this  in  an  inaugural  address,  "De 
oorspong  der  Religie,"  before  the  University  of 
Utrecht,  1904,  quotes  his  colleague  Ziehen  as  fol- 
lows: "Shall  we  indeed  speak  soon,  not  of  a  tree, 
but  of  a  tree-sensation,  or  even  some  specific  part 
of  the  tree-sensation?  Not  at  all.  Our  words 
denote  not  things,  but  sensations  and  ideas  and 
these  complexes  of  experiences  are  to  be  taken 
as  real." 

But  we  wish  further  to  call  attention  in  Pro- 
fessor James'  statement  to  the  view  concerning 
the  relation  of  origin  to  authority.  Professor 
James  takes  Httle  account  of  the  origin  of  that 
which  claims  authority.  Simply  because  he  does 
not  recognize  its  truly  a  priori  dictum,  he  in- 
clines toward  the  seeming  causes  which  discount 
supernatural  causes,  and  discards,  in  much  the 
same  way  as  medical  materialists,  the  question  of 
origin.      (Origin  employed  here  in  the  sense  of 


218  AUTHORITY 

source,  not  as  meaning  the  procedure  of  genetic 
appearance.)  But  on  such  presuppositions,  it  is 
difficult  to  come  to  any  true  appreciation  of 
faith,  which  requires  independent  or  final  au- 
thority to  be  acknowledged,  not  proved.  After 
all  the  facts  are  in,  from  a  posteriori  reflection 
upon  the  thought,  act,  or  experience,  we  cannot 
determine  the  faith  required  before  the  issues. 
Authority  always  requires  as  a  priori,  what 
James  will  recognize  only  as  a  posteriori  and  es- 
timates with  a  bias  on  the  basis  of  its  results 
upon  things  without  us.  In  his  "Will  to  Be- 
lieve" Professor  James  remarks: 

"No  concrete  test  of  what  is  really  true  has  ever  been 
agreed  upon.  Some  make  the  criterion  external  to  the 
moment  of  perception,  putting  it  either  in  revelation, 
the  consensus  gentium,  the  instincts  of  the  heart,  of  the 
systematized  experience  of  the  race.  Others  make  the 
perceptive  moment  its  own  test, — Descartes,  for  in- 
stance, with  his  clear  and  distinct  ideas  guaranteed  by 
the  veracity  of  God ;  Reid  with  his  'common-sense' ;  and 
Kant  with  his  forms  of  synthetic  judgment,  a  priori. 
The  inconceivability  of  the  opposite;  the  capacity  to  be 
verified  by  sense;  the  possession  of  complete  organic 
unity  or  self-relation,  realized  when  a  thing  is  its  own 
other, — our  standards  which,  in  turn,  have  been  used." 

Instead  of  interpreting  these  facts  as  accredi- 
ted to  the  circumstance  that  these  are  attempts 
to   explain  and   justify  the   striking   creditude 


1 


SCIENCE  AND  FAITH  219 

wherewith  first  truth  was  apprehended  and  au- 
thority recognized,  James  insists  that  "the  intel- 
lect, even  with  truth  directly  in  its  grasp,  may 
have  no  infalhble  signal  for  knowing  whether  it 
be  true  or  no.  Here  is  the  point  at  wliich  the  dis- 
cussion has  always  halted,  or — shall  we  say — 
really  begun.  Those  whose  faith  leans  upon  the 
verdicts  of  reason  and  conscience,  treating  them 
as  essentially  veracious,  demand  the  infallibihty 
of  Absolute  truth  to  back  them. 

We  believe  that  truth  announces  itself  as  much 
in  the  forms  of  life  we  find,  or  rather  as  it  finds 
us  in  the  forms  of  Ufe.  Truth  is  dogmatic;  it  has 
authority  and  inspires  faith.  This  is  truth  as  we 
see  it,  of  course.  Specific  forms  which  represent 
truth  to  us  may  not  do  so  from  another  angle, 
and  certainly  not  to  another  individual.  Yet 
truth  recognized  as  such  carries  its  own  verifica- 
tion. We  have  already  anticipated  the  objec- 
tion that  our  metaphysical  bias  runs  into  theoretic 
abstraction.  But  we  believe  that  we  are  free 
from  the  charge,  inasmuch  as  we  do  not  identify 
truth  with  the  specific  forms  in  which  it  manifests 
itself  to  different  individuals  at  different  times, 
i.  e.,  with  reality,  knowing  that  it  is  larger  than 
any  temporal  form.  Yet,  in  these  forms  we 
must  find  the  truth  as  we  can  experience  it.  On 
strictly  psychological  grounds,  we  know  that  un- 
mediated  faith  is  a  chimera. 


220  AUTHORITY 

As  Professor  Bavinck  well  says  in  his  Stone 
Lectures  on  "Philosophy  of  Revelation"  (p. 
82): 

"In  the  knowledge  of  the  truth  lies  the  end  of  its  rev- 
elation ;  reality  is  an  instrument  to  enable  us  to  find  the 
truth;  reality  is  intended  to  become  truth  in  our  con- 
sciousness and  in  our  experience.  Reality,  therefore, 
does  not  offer  us  in  the  truth  a  mere  copy  of  itself,  so 
that  the  world,  as  pragmatism  objects,  would  be  du- 
plicated. In  the  truth,  reality  arises  to  a  higher  mode 
of  existence ;  having  first  lain  in  darkness,  it  now  walks 
in  the  light;  having  once  been  a  riddle,  it  now  finds  its 
solution ;  not  understood  at  the  beginning,  it  is  now 
'declared.'  So  the  truth  obtains  an  independent  value 
of  its  own.  Its  standard  does  not  lie  in  its  usefulness 
for  life,  for,  if  usefulness  were  the  criterion  of  truth, 
then  perfect  unanimity  ought  to  prevail  in  regard  to 
usefulness,  and  life  itself  ought  to  be  a  value  not  sub- 
ject to  fluctuation.  But  in  regard  to  life,  what  counts 
is  not  merely  existence,  or  pleasure,  or  intensity,  but 
first  of  all  content  and  quality.  And  it  is  precisely  by 
truth  that  this  content  and  quality  are  determined. 
The  truth  is  of  more  value  than  empirical  life.  Christ 
sacrificed  his  life  for  it.  None  the  less,  by  doing  so  he 
regained  his  life.  Truth  is  worth  more  than  reality ; 
it  belongs  to  that  higher  order  of  things  in  which  physis, 
and  gnosis,  and  ethos  are  reconciled,  and  in  which  a  true 
philosophy  gives  full  satisfaction  both  to  the  demands 
of  the  intellect  and  to  the  needs  of  the  heart." 


CHAPTER  XXII 

PRAGMATISM  SUBVERSIVE  OF 
AUTHORITY 

Professor  James  makes  in  the  dialogue,  with 
which  "The  Meaning  of  Truth"  closes,  the  Prag- 
matist  dispense  with  this  hybrid  term  truth. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  what  knowledge  knows  is  the 
fact  itself,  the  event  or  whatever  the  reality  may  be. 
Where  you  see  three  distinct  entities  in  the  field,  the 
reality,  the  knowing,  and  the  truth,  I  see  only  two. 
Moreover,  I  can  see  what  each  of  my  two  entities  is 
knowiir-as,  but  when  I  ask  myself  what  your  third  entity, 
the  truth,  is  known-as,  I  can  find  nothing  distinct  from 
the  reality  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  ways  in  which  it 
may  be  known  on  the  other.  Are  you  not  probably  mis- 
led by  common  language,  which  has  found  it  conven- 
ient to  introduce  a  hybrid  name,  meaning  sometimes  a 
kind  of  knowing  and  sometimes  a  reality  known,  to 
apply  to  either  of  these  things  interchangeably?  And 
has  philosophy  anything  to  gain  by  perpetuating  and 
consecrating  the  ambiguity?  If  you  call  the  object  of 
knowledge  'reality,'  and  call  the  manner  of  its  being 
cognized  'truth,'  cognized  moreover  on  particular  occa- 
sions, and  variously,  by  particular  human  beings  who 
have  their  various  businesses  with  it,  and  if  you  hold 

331 


222  AUTHORITY 

consistently  to  the  nomenclature,  it  seems  to  me  that 
you  escape  all  sorts  of  trouble." 

Indeed!  Professor  James  does  well  to  dis- 
pense with  that  "hybrid  name"  truth,  if,  as  on 
pragmatic  basis,  there  is  no  normative  standard 
left.  H.  Heath  Bawden  hails  this  new  philoso- 
phy with  great  acclaim.  He  declares  in  "The 
Principles  of  Pragmatism":  "The  new  philoso- 
phy is  a  pragmatic  idealism.  Its  method  is  at 
once  intrinsic  or  immanent,  and  organic  or  func- 
tional" (p.  44).  He  goes  on  to  say  that  he 
means  "by  saying  that  its  method  is  immanent 
that  it  must  be  interpreted  from  within.  We 
find  ourselves  in  mid-stream  of  the  Niagara  of 
experience  and  may  define  what  it  is  only  by 
working  back  and  forth  within  the  current.  We 
don't  know  where  we're  going,  but  we're  on  the 
way."  Yesl  on  the  way,  admittedly  glorying  in 
the  ignorance  of  the  course  which  uncontrolled 
sovereign  experience  takes.  "Everything  that 
we  experience  is  equally  real"  (p.  55).  The 
compass  is  thrown  overboard,  truth  is  functional, 
to  be  used,  nay  to  be  made  and  subsequently  dis- 
carded. "Truth  is  a  form  of  value:  its  value  lies 
in  its  abihty  to  mediate  other  values"  (p.  216) 
floating  in  a  Niagara  of  experience.  "Truth  in- 
volves interaction  of  means  and  ends,  and  since 
experience  is  an  ever  expanding,  the  standard  of 


PRAGMATISM  SUBVERSIVE      223 

what  is  true  or  adequate  grows  with  this  expand- 
ing life.  It  is  not  a  question  of  truth,  but  of 
truths,  not  of  validity  but  of  specific  validities. 
There  is  no  single  criterion  of  truth,  because  there 
is  no  single  truth"  (p.  204).  The  formal  logi- 
cians have  maintained  that  the  validity  of 
thought  lies  in  its  reference.  Heath  Bawden  in- 
forms us  that  "Truth  or  falsity  involves  compari- 
son of  two  or  more  judgments.  A  judgment 
becomes  true  or  false  only  when  reflectively  scru- 
tinized and  evaluated  from  the  standpoint  of  a 
new  judgment."  In  this  pragmatic  movement 
as  taken  up  by  its  average  advocates,  one  cannot 
help  being  impressed  by  the  boastful  attitude 
with  which  they  present  truisms  as  important  new 
discoveries  to  do  away  with  the  traditional  views, 
the  meaning  of  which  they  fail  to  understand  by 
lack  of  philosophic  insight.  In  these  formulae, 
convictions  and  judgments  which  have  controlled 
the  thought  of  the  ages  and  are  still  the  mainstay 
of  the  best  minds  and  judgments,  is  compressed 
more  valuable  experience  than  the  noisy  superfi- 
cial clamorings  of  the  new-fangled  truths  an- 
nounce. New  thought  emphasizes  discrepancies 
in  life's  situations,  toys  with  the  unseen,  con- 
trasts logic  and  life,  ridicules  the  static,  the  law, 
the  authority  which  demands  submission.  It  in- 
sists: "tant  de  tetes,  tant  d'avis,"  and  one  is  as 
good  as  another.     Its  democracy  appeals  to  the 


224  AUTHORITY 

crowd  by  bringing  everything  exalted  within 
reach  of  the  impious  hand.  There  is  no  high  or 
low,  all  is  a  matter  of  experience,  no  standard 
obtains.  The  soldier's  wish  has  come  true;  in 
philosophy  as  in  morals.     Pragmatism  is 

"Somewheres  east  of  Suez 

Where  the  best  Is  like  the  worst, 
Where  there  aren't  no   Ten   Commandments, 
An'  a  man  can  raise  a  thirst." 

Of  course,  with  Professor  James  there  are 
"leadings,"  and  Professor  Dewey's  "Immediate 
Empirisism"  would  caution  in  the  use  to  be  made 
of  his  statement  that  the  failure  with  most  men 
is  to  set  up  a  standard  "authoritatively  instead  of 
experimentally."  For  this  eminent  scholar,  to 
whom  the  pragmatists  will  now  look  as  their 
leader,  is  a  greater  philosopher  than  the  illustri- 
ous Harvard  psychologist,  and  realizes  also  the 
import  of  Kant's  words,  that  in  itself  doubt  and 
criticism  is  not  a  permanent!  resting  place  for  hu- 
man reason.  Its  justification  is  relative,  and  its 
function  transitional.  Still,  in  this  movement 
"Human  arbitrariness  has  driven  divine  necessity 
from  scientific  logic,  as  James  well  declares  in 
"Pragmatism"  (p.  57).  Though  James  is  per- 
haps right  in  maintaining  that  he  means  to  ac- 
knowledge in  his  system  an  objective  correspond- 


PRAGMATISM  SUBVERSIVE      225 

ence,  by  refusing  this  corresponding  reality  ac- 
knowledgment as  causal  ground  which  involves  a 
normative,  regulative  character  for  experience,  he 
can  hardly  defend  this  claim  on  metaphysical 
grounds.  However,  James  confessedly  always 
disliked  the  speculative  cobwebs  of  metaphysics. 
They  restrict  life's  free  flow  upon  which  prag- 
matism insists.  Kant  slighted  the  objective, 
normative  element  of  the  supernatural  similarly, 
when  he  declared  in  "Kritik  der  Urteilskraf t" : 


"From  nature  as  object  of  our  senses  we  have  no 
ground  for  the  belief  that  things  serve  one  another  as 
means  to  ends,  and  nature  only  by  this  causality  becomes 
sufficiently  intelligible."  And  "Thus  the  idea  of  teleol- 
ogy in  nature  must  be  a  necessary  postulate  for  human 
judgment,  a  subjective  principle  of  judgment  in  our 
reason  therefore,  which  as  regulative  (not  constitutive) 
is  valid  as  absolutely  for  human  judgment,  as  if  it 
were  an   objective  principle." 

("Dass  aber  Dinge  der  Natur  einander  als  Mittel  zu 
Zwecken  dienen  und  ihre  Moglichkeit  selbt  nur  durch 
diese  Art  von  Causalitat  hinreichend  verstandlich  sei, 
dazu  haben  wir  gar  keinen  Grund  in  der  allgemeinen 
Idee  der  Natur  als  Inbegriffs  der  Gegenstande  der 
Sinne."  (V  §  61.)  "  So  wird  der  Begriff  der  Zweck- 
massigkeit  der  Natur  in  ihren  produkten  ein  fiir  die 
menschliche  Urteilskraft  in  Ansehung  der  Natur  not- 
wendiger  BegrifF  sein,  also  ein  subjectives  Princip  der 
Vernunft    fiir    die   Urteilskraft,    welches    als    regulativ 


226  AUTHORITY 

[nicht  constitutiv]  gilt,  alsob  es  sein  objectives  Princip 
ware.") 

The  view  that  the  end  in  nature  may  be 
regulative,  but  not  constitutive,  is  contradictory, 
for  only  then  is  there  a  rule  when  it  is  truly  the 
expression  of  nature.  It  deserves  notice  that 
Kant  recognizes  the  force  of  the  regulative  ele- 
ment, but  slights  this  by  declaring  it  subjective 
in  the  interest  of  his  mechanical  explanation  of 
nature.  His  aim  is  "to  explain  all  products  and 
events  of  nature,  even  those  most  fraught  with 
design,  as  far  as  possible  in  a  mechanical  way." 
("alle  Produkte  and  Ereignisse  der  Natur, 
selbst  die  Zweckmassigsten  so  weit  mechanisch 
zu  erklaren,  als  es  nur  immer  in  unserm  Vermo- 
gensteht.")  (378.)  Pragmatism  argues  a  "cor- 
respondence," so  as  not  to  lack  objectivity,  but 
refuses  to  acknowledge  this  reality  as  causal  or 
constitutive,  for  this  would  involve  regulative 
norm.  Thus,  however,  cannot  be  maintained 
real  objectivity.  The  query  rises:  Why  should 
there  be  any  correspondence?  This  is  the  most 
pertinent  question  against  James's  defense  of 
pragmatism,  especially  since  the  most  he  will  al- 
low is  that  "We  believe  our  precepts  are  pos- 
sessed in  common."  Subtle  psychological  so- 
phistry about  the  "quality  of  feeling"  and  "feel- 
ing of  quality"  cannot  delude  our  inner  deliver- 


PRAGMATISM  SUBVERSIVE      227 

ance,  even  by  the  scholar  whose  ingenious  stream- 
theory  tried  to  dispense  with  the  soul,  and  whose 
questioning,  "Does  consciousness  exist?"  con- 
cludes with  the  declaration  of  his  belief  that  con- 
sciousness is  but  "the  faint  rumor  left  behind  the 
disappearing  'soul'  upon  the  air  of  philosophy." 
Yet,  the  very  same  scholar  accredited  data  of 
spiritualistic  seances  with  the  warmth  of  convic- 
tion. 

In  the  "Essays  philosophical  and  psychologi- 
cal in  honor  of  William  James  by  his  colleagues 
at  Columbia"  is  a  helpful  suggestion  in  regard  to 
objectivity  in  the  essay  "The  New  Realism"  by 
George  Fullerton.  Professor  Fullerton  re- 
marks (p.  49)  : 

"They  have  only  to  distinguish  clearly  between  the 
objective  order  itself  and  their  assumed  non-phenome- 
nal entity,  and  to  use  that  order  as  a  framework  for 
the  ordering  of  experience  as  a  whole.  If  they  do  this 
they  are  doing  what  is  done  in  common  life  and  in  sci- 
ence— they  are  distinguishing  between  the  existence  of 
things  and  our  perception  of  them.  Without  this  dis- 
tinction, we  should,  indeed,  find  it  hard  to  get  on." 

On  pp.  33  and  35  he  says : 

"In  answer  to  the  idealistic  contention,  that  there  is 
no  experience  in  the  world  where  there  is  no  sensation, 
I  advance,  not  a  denial,  but  a  complementary  statement. 


228  AUTHORITY 

It  is  this :  There  is  no  sensation,  that  can  be  recog- 
nized as  such,  where  there  is  no  experience  of  the  world. 
What  is  a  sensation?  The  word  is  surely  not  one  to 
be  used  at  random.  No  one  thinks  of  employing  it  as  a 
mere  name  for  anything  and  everything.  When  we 
imagine  a  tree  or  a  house,  we  do  not  admit  that  we  are 
concerned  with  sensations.  How  can  we  distinguish  be- 
tween sensations  and  such  experiences  as  these?  But 
one  answer  to  this  question  can  be  given.  We  find  in 
experience  an  objective  order  of  phenomena.  No  one 
who  has  not  senses  finds  it  of  course.  The  phenomena 
that  stand  in  the  objective  order  are  revealed,  i.e.,  that 
they  may  be  referred  to  the  sense  of  someone,  and  in,  so 
far,  they  are  his  perception  of  the  objective  order,  the 
man  is  recognized  as  experiencing  sensations.  But,  al- 
though we  constantly  refer  phenomena  to  our  senses, 
this  is  not  our  only  way  of  treating  them.  We  relate 
them  to  each  other  directly,  abstracting  from  the  rela- 
tion to  sense,  and  in  so  far  we  recognize  them  as  having 
their  place  in  an  objective  order.  As  so  considered  the 
phenomena  in  question  are  not  sensations ;  they  are 
qualities  of  things.  That  phenomena  may  have  this 
double  relation  is  evident  from  the  fact  one  set  of  sci- 
ences occupies  itself  with  them  in  one  relation,  and  an- 
other busies  itself  with  them  as  standing  in  the  other. 
We  cannot  repudiate  all  these  sciences.  A  color  merely 
imagined  or  seen  in  a  dream  cannot  be  treated  by  phys- 
ical science  as  in  any  sense  the  property  of  a  thing;  it 
cannot  be  regarded  by  psychology  as  a  sensation.  He 
who  dwells  upon  sense-organs,  nerves,  and  messages, 
gives  a  meaning  to  the  word  sensation;  if  he  subse- 


PRAGMATISM  SUBVERSIVE      229 

quently  discards  this  physiological  apparatus  or  subli- 
mates it  into  a  mere  'projection,'  he  ought  to  discard 
with  it  all  the  meaning  he  has  gained,  and  ought,  in  jus- 
tice, to  abandon  the  word.  If,  by  bad  luck,  he  incon- 
sistently holds  on  to  it  he  becomes  an  idealist,  a  sub- 
jectivist." 

This  is  to  corroborate  what  Jevons  states  in 
"Lessons  in  Logic"  (p.  11):  "We  cannot  sup- 
pose, and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose,  that  by 
the  constitution  of  the  mind  we  are  obliged  to 
think  of  things  differently  from  the  manner  in 
which  they  are."  Logic  then,  holds  still  good  in 
spite  of  the  vehement  denunciations  of  the  mod- 
ern mind.  Perhaps  sometimes  speculative 
flights  have  been  attempted  without  a  strict  ob- 
servation of  the  facts  of  life.  Practical  claims 
might  have  been  occasionally  discarded  for  theo- 
retic rules,  dogma  too  exclusively  conceived  as 
logical  formulation  or  theory,  but  it  all  grew  out 
of  life,  and  regarding  life,  it  was  in  touch  with 
it,  not  to  stifle  it,  but  to  enrich  it  in  leading  it 
out  constitutively  in  its  regulations.  How  pal- 
try many  of  these  truisms  of  vital  life-interpre- 
tations sound  as  set  over  against  imaginary  tra- 
ditional formalism  may  appear  from  quoting 
f.  i.  the  felicitous  remarks  of  Scott  Holland  in 
"Logic  and  Life": 

"Faith  is  not  made  by  argument.     It  seeks,  indeed, 


230  AUTHORITY 

for  a  rational  solution  of  life's  mysteries ;  it  grows 
through  gaining  hold  of  them ;  'The  depth  said,  it  is  not 
in  me.'  Not  from  things  without,  but  from  the  heart 
within,  Cometh  wisdom ;  there,  in  the  inner  places  of  the 
soul,  in  the  secret  will  with  which  a  man  fears  the  Lord, 
and  departs  from  evil,  is  the  true  place  of  spiritual  un- 
derstanding.     (Preface.) 

"Reason  is  regarded,  not  in  its  isolated  character,  as 
an  engine  with  which  every  man  starts  equipped,  ca- 
pable of  doing  a  certain  job  whenever  required,  with  a 
definite  and  certain  mode  of  action ;  but  it  is  taken  as  a 
living  and  pliable  process  by  and  in  which  man  brings 
himself  into  rational  and  intelligent  relations  with  his 
surroundings,  with  his  experience.  Reason  is  the 
slowly  formed  power  of  harmonizing  the  world  of  facts ; 
and  its  justification  lies,  not  in  its  deductive  certainty 
as  in  its  capacity  to  advance.  It  proves  its  trustwor- 
thiness by  its  power  to  grow.  Reason  moves  towards 
its  place,  its  fulfillment,  so  far  as  it  settles  itself  into 
responsive  agreement  with  the  facts  covered  by  its  ac- 
tivity. We  have  to  do,  more  or  less,  with  the  actual 
construction  and  nature  of  the  reasoning  organ  itself. 
This  construction  is  alive,  and  every  instant  sees  it 
change:  it  is  no  isolated  faculty  where  working  can  con- 
tinue, or  be  watched  'm  vacuo,^  as  we  can  watch  the 
movement  of  a  machine  even  when  it  has  no  material  to 
work  upon.  Rather  is  it  to  be  held  in  unbroken  con- 
nection with  the  facts  on  which  it  works,  for  only  in  re- 
lation to  them  is  its  success,  its  truths,  obvious,  or  veri- 
fiable or  intelligible.  Everything  depends  on  the  char- 
acter of  the  facts  before  him,  and  on  the  nature  of  his 


PRAGMATISM  SUBVERSIVE      231 

main  experiences.  The  excellence  of  a  piece  of  reason- 
ing lies  simply  in  its  adaptive  facility,  in  the  response 
it  evokes  between  those  particular  new  impressions  and 
the  mass  of  older  and  habitual  experiments.  Change 
the  facts,  or  the  experience,  and  its  excellence  disap- 
pears,— it  becomes  unintelligible.  Only  in  intimate  and 
undivided  communion  with  the  facts  which  they  express, 
have  the  announcements  of  the  reason,  on  any  field  of 
knowledge,  any  intelligible  value;  and  no  one  therefore, 
who  does  not  live,  and  move,  and  have  his  being,  in  con- 
stant intercourse  with  the  spirit  life  can  enter  into  the 
deep  necessities  of  its  laws.  I  am,  of  necessity,  blind 
to  the  force  of  argument  and  judgment,  as  long  as  I 
have  no  corresponding  experience, — as  long  as  that 
body  of  fact  which  they  make  explicable  remains  to  me 
unverified  and  unexplored.  The  reason  in  man  is  hu- 
man ;  that  is  all  we  mean.  It  is  under  a  man's  impulse 
that  it  argues  and  discusses ;  it  is  part  and  parcel  of  his 
corporate  and  complex  existence.  The  whole  long  chain 
of  its  syllogisms  is  never  mechanical;  it  is  alive  along 
all  its  length;  mid  feels  at  every  joining  the  throbbing 
currents  of  his  moving  life.'" 

It  may  seem  strange  that — with  the  exception 
of  Professor  James — by  the  pragmatists  so  little 
attention  has  been  given  to  the  psychology  of 
faith,  though  they  are  intent  on  undermining 
faith  in  all  its  forms.  And  Professor  James,  who 
brings  abundant  psychological  insight  to  the 
statement  of  the  pragmatic  philosophy,  unfor- 
tunately reaches  forth  most  aggressively  in  its 


232  AUTHORITY 

metaphysical  formulations,  a  discipline  which  he 
confessedly  dislikes.  This  circumstance  brings 
the  psychologist  under  the  criticism  of  his  col- 
league Royce,  who  urges  rightly  that  in  pragma- 
tism the  importance  of  the  syllogism  is  over- 
looked and  its  nature  and  the  nature  of  deduc- 
tive reason  not  psychologically  understood. 
(Compare  the  author's  "The  American  philoso- 
phy Pragmatism.")  It  is  admitted  that  accord- 
ing as  objective  recognition  is  more  clear  and  un- 
questioned, the  stronger  our  will-power  is  as- 
serted, our  determination  surer.  Faith  therefore 
is  also  an  economic  help  in  life,  a  veritable  assur- 
ance. Forsooth,  no  balancing  mind,  no  reflective 
dreamer  like  Hamlet  does  the  deed.  In  this 
psychological  oversight,  by  refusing  objective 
recognition  as  guarantee  for  its  action.  Pragma- 
tism defeats  its  own  end  of  action.  Faith  and 
Authority  are  also  supreme  in  this. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
SUBJECTIVISM  AND  TRUTH 

Professor  Rudolf  Eucken,  in  his  "Hauptpro- 
bleme  der  Religionsphilosophie  der  Gegenwart," 
remarks : 

"The  mental  life  is  simply  incomprehensible  and 
could  never  exercise  power  with  us,  if  it  had  not  inde- 
pendent reality  apart  from  man,  if  the  life  which  ap- 
pears in  it  did  not  have  reality  and  were  not  truly  re- 
lated. Only  a  real  life-whole  is  capable  of  evoking  the 
activities  of  our  inner  life  (p.  16).  .  .  .  We  may 
understand  quite  different  things  by  the  true  and  the 
good,  but  none  of  us  would  ever  strive  for  them,  did  we 
not  think  of  them  as  superior  to  human  conditions  and 
opinions,  as  representative  of  another  timeless  order  of 
things.  The  more  we  comprehend  the  mental  life  as  a 
whole  and  understand  it  as  another  phase  of  reality,  the 
clearer  it  becomes  that  in  it  we  see  an  independent  world 
of  eternal  truth  appear  which  gives  foundation  to  the 
change  of  temporal  happenings  and  human  life  (p. 
54*).  .  .  .  That  its  metaphysical  elements  prove 
to  be  ethical  and  the  ethical  metaphysical,  is  the  char- 
acteristic greatness  and  lasting  dynamic  of  Christian- 
ity; former  times  often  make  it  onesidedly  metaphysi- 
cal; we  of  the  modern  age  should  avoid  turning  it  into 
a  mere  ethics  "  (p.  89). 

233 


234  AUTHORITY 

An  illustration  of  the  use  of  authority  in  the 
sense  of  witness  to  objective  fact  may  be  seen  in 
a  clause  of  the  last  will  and  testament  of  the  late 
Rev.  John  Bampton,  specifying  the  purpose  of 
the  now  famous  Bampton  lectures: 

"Also  I  direct  and  appoint,  that  the  eight  Divinity 
Lecturer  Sermons  shall  be  preached  upon  either  of  the 
following  subjects — to  confirm  and  establish  the  Chris- 
tian Faith,  and  to  confute  all  heretics  and  schismatics 
— ^upon  the  Divine  authority  of  holy  Scriptures — upon 
the  authority  of  the  writings  of  the  primitive  Fathers, 
as  to  the  faith  and  practice  of  the  primitive  Church — 
upon  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ 
— upon  the  Divinity  of  the  Holy  Ghost — upon  the  Ar- 
ticles of  the  Christian  Faith,  as  comprehended  in  the 
Apostles'  and  Nicene  Creeds." 

From  this  will  it  clearly  appears  that  authority 
is  lifted  above  questionings  and  inquiries;  but 
justification  is  sought  for  it  in  order  to  guarantee 
the  rational  exercise  of  faith.  The  objective 
witnesses  are  called  upon  to  justify  the  authority 
which  is  acknowledged.  So  those  in  whom  espe- 
cially resides  the  objective  witness  to  facts,  are 
to  render  service  by  bringing  about  intellectual 
verification  of  faith.  It  is  the  recognition  in 
Anselm's  profound  maxim:  "Credo  ut  intelli- 
gam," — of  the  ut  intelligam  as  well  as  of  the 
credo, — expressed  in  that  other  famous  saying  of 


SUBJECTIVISM  AND  TRUTH      235 

his:  "fides  quaerit  intellectam."  In  faith,  in  the 
recognition  of  authority,  the  will  is  involved ;  yet, 
not  the  bare  will  of  abstraction  according  to  the 
former  rigid  division  of  our  tripartite  nature. 
It  is  an  intelHgent  will  which  is  to  operate  under 
proper  and  proportionate  sentiment.  As  Dr. 
W.  Benton  Greene,  Jr.,  well  said  in  an  address 
delivered  before  a  conference  at  Princeton: 

"There  is  no  knowledge  of  the  heart.  Feeling  can 
give  knowledge  no  more  than  can  excitement.  Pro- 
fessor Bowen  said,  'Feeling  is  a  state  of  mind  consequent 
on  the  reception  of  some  idea.'  Again  the  head  and  the 
heart  are  not  in  opposition.  They  are  not,  as  often 
represented,  rival  faculties.  Man  is  not  a  bunch  of 
separate  activities.     He  is  an  indivisible  unit." 

We  cannot  fruitfully  consider  will,  intellect, 
or  feeling  separately,  neither  should  we  leave 
them  too  much  to  abstract  consideration,  but 
their  bearings  should  be  found,  as  they  function, 
in  the  concreteness  of  human  life.  In  life  we 
find  man  exercising  conjointly  his  volitional, 
emotional,  and  intellectual  nature.  His  whole 
personality  comes  to  play  on  the  scenes  of  his 
life  under  specific  forms  to  which  he  responds 
and  upon  which  he  reacts  in  his  own,  personal 
way,  thus  forming  a  character  with  its  corre- 
sponding "Weltanschauung."  Fichte  was  right 
in  saying  that  a  man  may  be  known  from  his  phi- 


236  AUTHORITY 

losophy,  as  was  also  the  author  of  Proverbs  when 
he  said  (IV.  23)  :  "Keep  thy  heart  with  all  dili- 
gence; for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life." 

Are  then  the  forms  of  authoritative  truth  on 
which  faith  is  exercised,  such  as  to  warrant  the 
act,  are  they  to  be  considered  final?  We  must 
answer.  No,  unless  they  carry  in  themselves  the 
intrinsic  power  of  the  truth,  unless  they  are 
manifestations  of  God;  no  derived  authority  will 
endure.  This,  however,  is  exactly  what  religion 
is  built  on  and  upon  which  it  rests,  as  Professor 
T.  Cannegieter  has  said:  ''De  taak  en  methode 
der  wijsbegeerte  van  den  Godsdienst"  p.  129. 

"Through  our  indivisible,  spiritual  nature,  we  are  in 
personal,  direct  relation  with  God.  He  gives  us — He 
only  knows  how — ^the  impression  of  His  Presence  and 
relation  to  us.  But  it  follows  from  this,  that  when  the 
question  is  raised  as  to  the  reality  of  these  experiences, 
it  never  devolves  upon  the  science  of  religion  to  prove  the 
existence  of  God.  For  the  religious  man  whose  experi- 
ences are  real.  For  him  God  is  the  deepest  reality. 
Out  of  this  blossoms  forth  his  religion.  The  first  point 
in  all  religion  is  God,  who  is  known,  because  he  revealed 
Himself.  Whoever  tries  to  explain  religion  without 
this  presupposition  destroys  it.  In  this  one  primum 
all  is  contained.  For  when  God  reveals  Himself  to  the 
soul,  then  He  is  known  in  His  absoluteness  as  the  In- 
finite, who  is  the  ground  of  all  finite  things.  And  every- 
thing finite  is  considered  as  belonging  to  Him  only. 


SUBJECTIVISM  AND  TRUTH      237 

God  revealing  Himself  is  the  primordial  source  of  all 
religion.  When  did  this  revelation  begin?  It  coin- 
cides with  creation,  it  began  when  man  commenced  his 
psychic  life  equipped  for  the  reception  of  this  revela- 
tion. As  the  eye  is  teleologically  fitted  for  the  recep- 
tion of  light,  so  is  the  soul  of  man  fitted  for  the  recep- 
tion of  God. 

See  also  his  interesting  sketch:  "De  samen- 
hang  van  het  objectieve  en  het  subjectieve  in  de 
dogmatiek." 

When  Leopold  Monod  observes  in  "Le  pro- 
bleme  de  I'autorite":  "I  insist  that  no  such  re- 
gime is  of  divine  origin,"  he  practically  prede- 
termines not  to  recognize  any  final  authority, 
and  thus  his  conception  of  the  revelation  of  truth 
must  needs  be  one  that  is  not  only  incomplete, 
but  also  mixed  with  error,  for  it  means  consist- 
ently that  there  is  no  revealed  truth.  Yet  he 
presumes  to  discuss  seriously  just  this  point: 
"We  do  not  dispute  the  fact  of  authority  in  hu- 
man hfe,  nor  its  relative  right,  but  the  absolute 
right  of  authority.  Are  there  authorities,  or  is 
there  an  authority,  which  commands  us  in  abso- 
lute fashion,  so  that  to  withhold  from  it  our 
thought  and  action  would  be  to  fail  in  our  first 
duty?  Where  is  this  authority?  Where  speci- 
fically for  the  Christian  is  the  authority  which  he 
may  not  deny  without  ceasing  by  the  very  act  to 
be  a  Christian?" 


238  AUTHORITY 

This  method  necessarily  keeps  M.  Monod  in 
the  sphere  of  relativity,  for  he  has  precluded  the 
serious  admission  of  any  final  authority  or  abso- 
lute truth.  The  question  concerns  the  recogni- 
tion of  authority,  the  receiving  of  the  documenta- 
tion of  God's  revelation,  not  the  establishment  of 
it.  To  argue  authority  into  being,  would  require 
a  regress  ad  infinitum.  And  whenever,  or  in 
whatever  field,  such  an  attempt  is  made,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  recognition  of  authority  has  already 
been  refused,  that  the  exercise  of  faith  has  been 
shut  out.  The  confusion  of  these  two  totally  dif- 
ferent procedures  is  in  the  air  and  is  widespread. 
It  seems  to  be  thought  a  reasonable  procedure 
to-day  in  many  quarters  to  hold  that  estabhshed 
authority,  in  the  exercise  of  its  function,  be  it  re- 
ligious or  civil,  must  give  an  account  of  itself 
even  to  those  over  whom  it  rightfully  holds  claim. 
This,  however,  is  a  hopelessly  confusing  princi- 
ple, and  is  never  acted  upon  in  practice,  neither 
indeed  could  it  be.  It  would  require  a  judge  in 
office  to  ask  for  jurisdiction,  an  officiating  priest 
to  request  his  parishioners  to  grant  him  authority 
for  his  ministry.  It  would  require  approval  by 
the  people  of  the  law  that  is  in  force  over  them, 
and  vindication  of  the  Bible  while  appeal  is  made 
to  it.  There  is  a  normative,  objective  standard 
of  truth.  All  the  varied  forms  of  truth,  how- 
ever,   differently    perceived,    admit    of    being 


SUBJECTIVISM  AND  TRUTH      289 

brought  into  comparison,  inasmuch  as  all  these 
forms  go  back  to  one  source,  i.  e.,  to  human  na- 
ture, which  is  always  essentially  the  same. 

Dr.  Charles  Tyler  Olmstead,  Bishop  of  the  di- 
ocese of  Central  New  York,  commending  an 
article  of  the  Reverend  Burnett  T.  Stafford  in 
the  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  April,  1907,  remarks 
truly : 

"It  is  certain  as  anything  can  be  that  there  is  an 
immovable  substratum  of  truth  underlying  every  Divine 
manifestation,  which  the  human  mind  may  elucidate  and 
view  from  different  points,  but  can  never  change.  And 
it  is  so  that  the  Christian  life  and  civilization  are  built 
up  on  the  unchangeable  facts  of  the  Incarnate  Life  of 
the  Son  of  God.  We  may  mediate  on  those  facts  and 
see  more  and  more  of  their  wondrous  significance,  now 
emphasizing  one  feature  and  now  another;  but  to  deny 
their  reality  and  call  that  'spiritual  interpretation'  is 
to  put  our  vain  fancies  in  the  place  of  God's  revelation, 
and  to  trick  out  our  belief  with  a  deceptive  appearance 
of  faith.  It  will  not  do.  It  destroys  the  foundations, 
and  leaves  us  a  mere  human  philosophy  in  the  place  of 
divine  religion.  No  such  philosophy  ever  has  been,  or 
ever  will  be,  able  to  withstand  the  active  resistance  and 
antagonism  of  human  selfishness." 

Subjectivism  tends  to  discredit  the  normative 
element  in  authority,  because  its  objective  aspect, 
its  metaphysical  implication,  recedes  before  the 
claim  of  subjective   interpretation.     This   finds 


240  AUTHORITY 

illustration  in  a  recent  volume  by  Dr.  D.  W. 
Forrest  entitled,  "The  Authority  of  Christ." 
The  author  endeavors  to  enforce  Christ's  au- 
thority by  enlarging  upon  the  importance  of  the 
work  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  a  peculiar  mode 
of  treatment  to  affirm  at  the  start:  "It  appears 
to  me  that  those  who  maintain  a  genuine  histori- 
cal Incarnation  of  the  Son  of  God  have  not 
always  sufficiently  recognized  the  limitations  in- 
herent in  an  Incarnate  life,  nor  how  vital  is  the 
illumination  of  the  Spirit  operating  through  the 
best  activities  of  men's  minds  and  hearts,  for  the 
discovery  of  what  Christ's  authoritative  message 
really  is."  Dr.  Forrest  certainly  chooses  a 
rather  illogical  way  when  he  seeks  to  persuade  us 
of  the  authority  of  Christ  by  declaring  His  limi- 
tations according  to  the  kenotic  theory  to  which 
he  adheres,  and  then  subsequently  endeavors  to 
establish  Christ's  authority  by  appeahng  to  the 
activity  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  thus  comes  into 
line  with  the  current  subjective  interpretations 
of  Christianity,  leaving  us  without  guarantee 
that  the  "Zeitgeist"  will  not  assert  itself  as 
"Heiliger  Geist,"  when  he  discards  "an  objective 
standard  of  divine  commands,  unbounded  by  any 
fluctuations  or  vicissitudes  of  human  thought  and 
life."  He  says  again:  "What  security  is  there 
that  mankind  will  not  some  day  universally  re- 
nounce the  Gospel  of  Christ?     Is  it  merely  that 


SUBJECTIVISM  AND  TRUTH      241 

the  Church  claims  to  have  a  commission  to  de- 
clare, "This  is  the  revealed  truth?"  Certainly 
not.  A  claim  is  nothing  unless  it  can  justify  it- 
self to  the  best  judgment  of  men;  and  the  higher 
it  is  the  more  eagerly  will  its  credentials  be  scru- 
tinized. Therefore  in  the  end  the  one  guarantee 
for  the  perpetuity  of  Christianity  in  the  world 
is  its  adaptation  to  human  nature"  (p.  429). 

If  the  impossible,  hypothetical  event  sug- 
gested by  Dr.  Forrest  should  happen,  and  man- 
kind should  universally  renounce  the  Gospel  of 
Christ,  the  Gospel  none  the  less  would  still  be 
true.  Truth  does  not  derive  its  intrinsic,  ob- 
jective authority  either  from  the  needs  of  human 
nature  or  from  its  appreciation  by  human  nature. 
Its  reception  by  mankind  depends  on  this  sense 
of  need,  but  to  elevate  this  manward  aspect  of 
truth  into  its  criterion  is  pure  pragmatism.  The 
question  in  point  Dr.  Forrest  dismisses  abruptly. 
The  Church  does  claim  to  be  commissioned  to  de- 
clare a  revealed  truth.  For  Dr.  Forrest  to  deny 
these  claims  because  they  do  not  meet  the  cri- 
terion which  he  proposes  (though  we  need  hardly 
mention  that  in  this  revealed  truth  the  deepest 
needs  of  the  human  heart  are  met) — ^is  to  refuse 
assent  to  objective  truth,  because  it  does  not  find 
its  way  to  the  minds  which  he  sets  up  as  judges. 
With  some  exaggeration  of  this  statement  we 
might  say:  Truth  which  is  not  popular  is  a  con- 


242  AUTHORITY 

tradiction  in  terms.  Such  a  saying,  however, 
would  be  a  most  painful  mockery  of  the  world's 
heroic  martyrs  who  have  fallen  as  witnesses  to 
truth,  and  even  of  Him  who  said:  "To  this  end 
was  I  born,  and  for  this  cause  came  I  into  the 
world,  that  I  should'  bear  witness  unto  the  truth," 
and  who  added:  "Everyone  that  is  of  the  truth 
heareth  my  voice"  (John  xviii.  38),  although 
there  were  many  who  did  not  hear. 

This  contention  that  the  claims  of  Christianity 
must  justify  themselves  to  the  individuals  who 
sit  in  judgment  upon  them,  involves  the  moral 
question  of  beliefs  as  expressed  in  Christ's  signifi- 
cant addition.  This  subjective  attitude  as  pre- 
requisite for  the  reception  of  truth.  Dr.  Forrest 
makes  practically  the  whole  of  Christianity  and 
then  elaborates  the  activity  of  the  Holy  Spirit  by 
identifying  His  work  essentially  with  the  best 
judgment  of  men, — a  procedure  which  runs 
either  into  humanitarianism  or  into  pantheism. 
He  who  discusses  the  authority  of  Christ  should 
remember  that,  if  mankind  derives  its  final  au- 
thority from  its  own  nature,  it  acts  on  its  own 
authority,  and  further,  that  though  the  admission 
of  truth  to  the  hearts  of  men  is  subjectively  con- 
ditioned, this  circumstance  does  not  decide  the 
question  concerning  the  nature  of  truth  itself. 
"God  is  His  own  interpreter  and  He  will  make 
it  plain." 


SUBJECTIVISM  AND  TRUTH      243 

But  again  Dr.  Forrest  says  (p.  428)  :  "We  re- 
pudiate the  attempt  to  impose  upon  us  the 
ecclesiastical  order  of  patristic  or  mediaeval 
times,  and  claim  the  right  in  Christ's  service  to 
be  true  to  ourselves  and  to  our  appointed  place." 
The  question,  however,  is  not  whether  systems 
should  be  imposed  upon  those  who  do  not  find 
themselves  satisfied  in  the  traditional  creed  of 
Christianity.  This  would  make  hypocrites,  not 
Christians.  Those  of  "the  ecclesiastical  order  of 
patristic  or  mediaeval  times"  were  the  first  to  af- 
firm that  human  agencies  cannot  make  Chris- 
tians. 

The  issue  is  one  which  Dr.  Forrest  either 
evades  or  does  not  perceive,  namely,  whether 
simply  being  true  to  ourselves  constitutes  being  a 
Christian,  or  whether  specific  and  unique  char- 
acteristics belong  to  Christianity  and  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  We  must  first  determine  the  na- 
ture of  Christianity  and  then  answer  the  ques- 
tion. What  constitutes  a  Christian?  Scholars 
professedly  still  turn  to  the  Christ  as  the  source 
and  center  of  Christianity,  though  the  ethnic 
faiths  have  occasionally  been  called  upon  for  elu- 
cidation, because  of  a  widely  current  emphasis  on 
human  nature.  In  discussing  Loisy's  books, 
"L'Evangile  et  I'Eglise"  and  "Autour  d'un 
petit  livre,"  Dr.  Forrest  quite  naturally  inclines 
towards  Abbe  Loisy's  subjectivism,  but  objects  to 


244  AUTHORITY 

what  critics  consider  Loisy's  strongest  point,  the 
defense  of  historic  Christianity  as  the  natural  and 
therefore  legitimate  form  by  means  of  which  the 
Church  perpetuates  itself,  declaring  that  "His- 
tory knows  no  instance  of  religion  without  a 
cult." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

NEEDS  AND  UTILITY 

There  is  a  fallacious  use  made  of  the  phrase: 
"Natura  exigit,  imperat  Deus" — what  nature  de- 
mands, God  enjoins.  This  has  been  interpreted 
to  mean  that  man's  deepest  needs  are  God's  high- 
est laws.  Hooker  tries  to  safeguard  this  view  by 
conditional  clauses  against  too  free  interpreta- 
tion.    He  says  in  his  "Ecclesiastical  Polity": 

"The  general  and  perpetual  voice  of  men  is  as  the 
sentence  of  God  himself.  For  that  which  all  men  have 
at  all  time  learned,  nature  herself  must  needs  have 
taught,  and  God  being  the  author  of  nature,  her  voice 
is  but  his  instrument."      (I.  VIII.  8.) 

Also  (I.  X.  1.   8.) 

"Two  foundations  there  are  which  bear  up  public  so- 
cieties :  the  one  a  natural  inclination,  whereby  all  men 
desire  sociable  life  and  fellowship ;  the  other  an  order 
expressly  or  secretly  agreed  upon  touching  the  manner 
of  their  union  in  living  together  .  .  .  the  lawful 
power  of  making  laws  to  command  whole  political  socie- 
ties of  men  belongeth  so  properly  unto  the  same  entire 
societies,  that  for  any  prince  or  potentate  of  what  kind 

245 


246  AUTHORITY 

soever  on  earth  to  exercise  the  same  of  himself,  and  not 
either  by  express  commission  immediately,  personally 
received  from  God,  or  else  by  authority  derived  at  first 
from  their  consent  upon  whose  persons  they  impose 
laws,  is  no  better  than  mere  tyranny.  Laws  they  are 
not  therefore,  which  public  approbation  has  not  made 
so." 

Subsequently  God's  laws  have  been  read  in  hu- 
man needs.  This  fits  the  modern,  democratic 
conception  which  evaluates  with  life  as  the  source 
and  standard  of  authority.  How  vague,  un- 
stable and  undefined  this  new  democratic  au- 
thority is  need  not  be  discussed,  but  it  should  be 
observed  that  a  humanitarian  religion  with  hu- 
manity as  object  and  source  of  authority,  pre- 
supposes the  higher  authority  on  which  all  its 
various  manifestations  of  life  are  forever  de- 
pendent. Indeed!  Christ  came  that  we  might 
have  life  and  have  it  abundantly,  but  He  de- 
clared paradoxically:  "whosoever  will  save  his 
life  shall  lose  it:  and  whosoever  will  lose  his  life 
for  my  sake  shall  find  it."  Though  man's  deep- 
est needs  are  met  in  the  Gospel,  it  deserves  spe- 
cial notice  that  Christ  always  states;  he  that  be- 
lieveth  on  me  hath  life  everlasting.  This  pre- 
supposed element  of  faith  rules  rational  interpre- 
tations regarding  life  out  of  court  as  authority 
over  the  same.  This  rationalistic  tendency  be- 
trays itself  in  "Modernism  a  Record  and  Re- 


NEEDS  AND  UTILITY  247 

view,"  which  A.  L.  Lilley  dedicates  to  George 
Tyrrell.  He  says  in  his  epistle  dedicatory  to 
Tyrrell,  who  when  young  left  the  Anglican  com- 
munion for  the  Roman  Catholic  Church: 

"You  have  not  for  a  moment  thought  it  necessary 
or  even  possible  to  abandon  the  Church  of  your  delib- 
erate adoption,  even  when  quite  recently  you  heard  the 
voice  of  authority  raised  against  you  in  formal  con- 
demnation. You  know  too  well  the  nature  of  a  Church 
and  the  nature  and  limits  of  authority  in  a  Church. 
For  you  a  Church  is  a  spirtiual  fatherland,  your  due 
allegiance  to  which  no  authority  can  in  the  last  resort 
either  assess  or  guarantee.  Authority  indeed  is  essen- 
tial, but  it  discharges  its  special  function  only  when  it 
waits  upon  life  and  ministers  to  it.  When  it  attempts 
to  prescribe  to  life  the  limits  within  which  it  must  move 
and  beyond  which  it  must  not  venture,  it  has  ceased  to 
be  ministrant  to  life  and  is  engaged,  whether  it  knows  it 
or  not,  in  preparing  death.  Then  it  becomes  a  duty  to 
resist  it  in  its  own  interests,  to  resist  it  in  order  that  it 
may  renew  its  character  and  methods  and  become  once 
again  an  authentic  force  of  direction  and  control.  The 
limits  of  coercive  power  which  it  may  legitimately  exer- 
cise are  prescribed  for  it  by  the  verdicts  of  life,  as  to 
what  things  have  proved  in  general  and  continuous  ex- 
perience to  be  morally  hurtful.  Yet  these  are  just  the 
things  on  which  authority  (perhaps  wisely,  for  even 
here  there  may  be  some  shrunken  and  distorted  growth 
of  life)  has  always  borne  most  lightly;  while  with  the 
obstinate  blindness  which  has  characterized  it  at  many 


248  AUTHORITY 

a  moment  of  its  history  it  crushes  the  forces  which  would 
renew  life  and  open  out  to  it  the  way  of  progress.  Au- 
thority through  those  who  have  wielded  it  has  too  often 
identified  itself  with  accidental  and  temporary  forms. 
At  such  times  it  is  necessary  for  it  to  learn  that  its 
forms  are  of  the  things  that  can  be  shaken  and  must  be 
shaken  in  order  that  the  things  which  cannot  be  shaken, 
life  and  the  authority  which  proceeds  from  it,  may  re- 
main. The  rulers  of  every  spiritual  society  need  to 
learn  from  secular  history  the  lesson  that  the  best  citi- 
zens of  the  temporal  fatherland  have  often  been  those 
who  resisted  even  to  death  the  unlimited  claims  of  some 
temporary  form  of  authority  arrogating  to  itself  that 
divine  right  which  was  even  then,  through  the  chang- 
ing needs  and  conditions  of  life,  passing  to  another 
form.  Both  in  the  temporal  and  the  spiritual  spheres 
authority  prcoes  its  divine  right  by  being  limited  and 
ministerial.  When  it  becomes  absolute,  it  has  become 
already  denied  that  right.  It  is  the  function  of  author- 
ity to  keep  life  dependent  upon  God,  and  to  that  end 
to  reverence  and  cherish  those  forward  and  upward 
movements  of  life  in  which  the  will  of  God  is  gradually 
declared.  It  is  the  temptation  of  authority  to  despise 
life  or  to  ignore  it,  to  identify  its  momentary  will  with 
the  ultimate  will  of  God  which  even  inspires  man's  spir- 
itual growth  and  seeks  expression  through  it.  You 
have  been  condemned  as  the  enemy  of  religious  author- 
ity, indeed  as  the  enemy  of  religion  itself,  because  you 
have  sought  to  recall  authority  to  the  sources  of  its 
strength  and  thus  to  restore  to  religious  unity  a  world 
which  existing  forms  and  methods  have  been  for  long, 


« 


NEEDS  AND  UTILITY  249 

and  are  now  ever  more  and  more  rapidly,  reducing  to 
religious  disintegration  and  decay.  You  will  not  be  ar- 
rested in  the  work  of  enduring  pith  and  moment  to 
which  you  have  been  called,  by  this  fiat  of  a  day. 
Through  you  the  dawn  has  at  last  broken  for  thousands 
of  wearied  souls  who  have  battled  all  their  lives,  and 
battled  hopelessly  with  the  spectres  of  doubt  and  dark- 
ness. You  have  spoken  for  them  the  word  of  hope,  so 
simple  and  obvious  that,  till  you  spoke  it  with  the  calm 
confidence  of  assured  conviction,  they  dared  not  believe 
it  to  be  true:  'The  present  is  older  and  wiser  and  better 
than  the  past  which  it  incorporates  and  transcends.^ 
They  will  be  with  you  in  the  long  and  patient  effort, 
which  you  will  not  abandon  or  relax  to  save  the  majestic 
and  glorious  tradition  of  Roman  Christianity  from  the 
narrow-hearted  and  ineffectual  isolation  from  the  living 
world  to  which  it  would  condemn  itself." 

The  expressions  in  this  passage  which  we  ren- 
dered in  italics  suffice  to  bring  out  our  above  ob- 
servation. We  wish,  however,  to  make  a  few  re- 
marks in  regard  to  them.  In  the  statement  that 
"the  present  is  older  and  wiser  and  better  than 
the  past  which  it  incorporates  and  transcends" 
we  lack  the  superficiality  of  much  clamoring 
liberalism,  which  is  born  of  a  day,  in  that  here  the 
present  is  knit  even  constitutionally  to  the  past, 
"which  it  incorporates  and  transcends."  Thus 
the  spirit  of  opposition  is  obviated.  As  Tyrrell 
himself  states  in  "Through  Scylla  and  Charyb- 
dis": 


250  AUTHORITY 

"For  it  is  psychologically  impossible  for  any  individ- 
ual to  get  outside  the  social  process  which  has  made 
him  what  he  is,  as  to  form  a  judgment  which  shall  at 
once  be  just  and  yet  be  contradictory  to  the  social  mind. 
Either  he  has  blundered  and  misinterpreted  the  social 
mind,  in  which  case  it  is  only  his  liberty  of  error  that  is 
violated ;  or  he  has  interpreted  it  more  deeply  and  truly 
than  the  average  and  official  interpreters,  in  which  case 
he  differs  from  these,  but  does  not  contradict  them,  in- 
asmuch as  his  is  only  a  stricter  conformity  to  the  same 
rule  as  they  profess  to  obey"  (p.  60). 

There  is  no  reason  why  the  present  should 
transcend,  or  even  necessarily  incorporate  the 
past.  This  on  strict  psychological  grounds  is  at 
once  quite  plain.  It  is  self-evident  that  one  can- 
not get  any  conviction  that  comes  from  personal 
experience — and  tliis  personal  and  ethical  ele- 
ment figures  so  largely  in  the  religious  sphere — 
before  fulfilling  the  conditions  upon  which  alone 
that  experience  can  come,  no  matter  what  has 
gone  on  before.  The  social  development  is  not 
so  that  means  lead  mechanically  to  the  ends. 
Indeed,  often  the  first  are  last  and  the  last  first. 
But  it  would  seem  that  the  writer  thinks  of 
truth's  transcendency  in  time  and  in  saying  that 
the  present  incorporates  and  transcends  the  past, 
would  add  that  the  future  will  do  this  much  more 
so.  In  this  is  evident  the  Romish  conception 
which — to  use  Tyrrell's  own  words — considers 


NEEDS  AND  UTILITY  251 

"one  of  the  most  fundamental  and  distinctive 
principles  of  Catholicism  is  the  subjection  of  the 
individual  mind,  will  and  sentiment  in  matters  of 
religion  to  the  collective  mind,  will,  and  senti- 
ment of  the  community;  of  the  private  to  the 
Catholic  conscience;  in  a  word,  the  principle  of 
authority"  (p.  58). 

Against  such  a  conception  of  authority  we 
readily  see  the  protest  of  persons  of  spiritual  ap- 
prehension, as  indeed  the  greatest  in  this  church 
have  broken  through  the  sacramental  ceremonies 
of  the  institutions.  Augustine,  Gottschalk, 
Savonarola,  Pascal,  Port-Royal  and  Jansenism 
and  Calvin  witness  to  a  more  purely  spiritual 
conception  than  this  visible  church  holds.  Since 
Felicite  de  la  Mennais  the  independent  search  has 
made  some  claims  for  the  individual  and  spirits 
Hke  Loisy  and  Tyrrell  are  in  the  wake  of  this 
great  publicist.  Reverence  and  piety  are  theirs, 
they  are  not  kindred  of  the  host  of  liberals  who 
nowadays  proclaim  with  cocksure  pedantry  the 
progressive  "new  truths"  against  the  supersti- 
tions of  an  old  outworn  faith.  De  la  Mennais, 
Loisy  and  Tyrrell  are  searching,  because  the 
visible  church  of  Rome  with  her  elaborate  sacer- 
dotalism does  not  satisfy.  There  is  something 
pathetic  in  the  opening  note  of  "Through 
Scylla  and  Charybdis":  "What  I  have  here  put 
together  might  be  described  as  the  history  of  a 


252  AUTHORITY 

religious,  or  rather  philosophical,  opinion.  For 
an  opinion,  it  is,  and  nothing  more.  I  am  much 
more  certain  that  some  other  opinions  are  wrong 
than  that  tliis  is  right;  and  if  anyone  will  show 
me  a  better,  he  shall  be  numbered  among  my 
benefactors."  Anyone  may  readily  observe  the 
difference  in  temper  from  those  objections 
against  spirituality  which  President  King  of 
Oberlin  College  discusses  in  "The  Seeming  Un- 
reality of  the  Spiritual  Life,"  and  which  he  says, 
"come  from  an  abstract  intellectualism,  from  a 
crude  sensationalism,  and  from  an  impossible 
hypothesizing  of  laws,  and,  in  general,  from  a 
quite  unwarrantable  exaltation  of  the  mathemati- 
cal-mechanical view  of  the  world."  LiJley  con- 
cedes authority  to  he  essential,  hut  requires  it  to 
wait  upon  life.  Now,  as  observed  above,  au- 
thority only  ministers  to  life  when  it  prescribes 
to  it.  Only  in  controlling  it,  is  authority  minis- 
trant  to  life.  Life  does  not  prescribe  to  itself  its 
own  authority.  If  it  be  the  function  of  authority 
to  keep  life  dependent  upon  God,  then,  indeed! 
this  authority  must  in  its  forms  speak  to  those 
whose  faith  does  acknowledge  it,  with  the  abso- 
lute authenticating  power  of  God.  That  this  is 
not  always  recognized  in  the  bewildering  mass  of 
formal  religion  is  easily  seen,  especially  when  the 
emotional  and  aesthetic  is  mainly  appealed  to  at 
the  cost  of  a  spiritual  apprehension.     "God  is  a 


NEEDS  AND  UTILITY  253 

spirit  and  those  that  worship  Him  must  worship 
Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  Yet,  in  Tyrrell's 
own  words:  "Catholicism  stands  out  as  a  religion 
of  the  whole  man  against  the  pedantry  of  a 
purely  reasonable  religion  that  would  abolish  the 
luxuriant — doubtless  at  times  too  luxuriant — 
wealth  of  symbolism  in  favor  of  a  'ministry  of  the 
word'  alone,  taking  'word'  in  its  baldest  literal 
sense ;  and  that  would  limit  the  converse  between 
God  and  man  to  what  can  be  uttered  in  spoken 
or  written  language."     He  goes  on  to  say: 

"There  is,  then,  no  small  pedantry  of  intellectualism 
in  the  notion  that  worship  in  the  spirit  and  in  truth 
must  necessarily  be  conducted  in  circumstances  of 
sought-out  plainness,  and  divested  of  all  appeal  to  the 
senses,  the  imagination,  and  the  emotions ;  of  all  sac- 
raments— and  symbols — a  worship  which  would  suffer 
no  more  of  God's  message  to  enter  the  soul  than  can 
find  its  way  through  the  narrow  slit  of  common  sense, 
and  clothe  itself  in  the  stiff  primness  of  colorless  prose. 
Of  such  worship  Christ  and  His  apostles — Jews  as  they 
were  and  lovers  of  the  Temple  with  its  soul-stirring 
symbolism — knew  nothing,  nor  has  any  religion  ever 
thriven  long  on  such  a  fallacy  of  puritanism  strictly 
adhered  to.  The  tendency  of  puritanism  is  to  reduce 
Christianity  to  its  lowest  terms ;  to  cast  off  all  that  has 
grown  out  of,  or  on  to  its  primitive  expression ;  to 
bring  it  down  to  the  level  of  the  lowest  and  most  uni- 
versal spiritual  capacity;  to  make  it  democratic  in  just 
what  seems  to  us  the  wrong  and  popular  sense  of  the 


254  AUTHORITY 

term.  For  it  is  to  favor  one  section  of  the  church  at 
the  expense  of  another;  to  starve  the  higher  and  rarer 
capacity  in  the  interests  of  the  lower  and  commoner;  to 
assume  the  spiritual  equality  of  God's  sons  means  an 
equality  of  gifts  and  graces ;  to  forget  that  the  Chris- 
tian demos  includes  and  needs  every  grade  and  kind  of 
spirituality  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest.  For  this 
reason  as  well  as  for  its  severe  rationality  puritanism, 
in  spite  of  its  studied  abstract  simplicity,  has  always 
been  the  religion  of  a  certain  class,  and  a  certain  tem- 
perament, and  a  certain  culture.  Whereas  Catholicism, 
in  spite  of  or  rather  because  of  its  vast  complexity,  has 
been,  as  no  other,  a  religion  both  of  the  crowds  and 
masses,  and  also  of  the  intellectual,  the  cultivated,  the 
mystical,  the  aesthetic  minority"  (p.  32  ff). 

Tyrrell  proceeds  to  discuss  this  theme  in  con- 
nection with  his  impressions  of  St.  Etienne 
du  Mont,  the  most  devotional  catholic  church  in 
Paris,  where  I  myself  was  struck  with  a  singular 
contrast  in  pious  worship  to  the  other  cathedrals 
which  offer  almost  the  spectacle  of  being  public 
monuments,  utilized  by  the  church.  "Moreover, 
we  find  in  such  a  church  as  St.  Etienne  the  ex- 
pression, not  of  individual,  but  of  a  collective 
spirit,  world-wide  and  ancient,  of  which  it  is  the 
product.  Everything  there  speaks  of  com- 
munion with  a  great  international  religious  or- 
ganism ;  with  the  remote  past  of  Catholicism ;  and 
through  Catholicism,  with  the  past  of  those  older 


NEEDS  AND  UTILITY  255 

religions  out  of  which  it  has  grown.  It  (St. 
Etienne  du  Mont)  is  a  visuahzed  and  sensible  ex- 
pression of  the  religious  experience  of  the  best 
part  of  humanity,  by  means  of  which  the  re- 
ligious sense  of  the  individual  is  wakened,  stimu- 
lated, and  informed;  and  his  consciousness  of 
solidarity  with  the  general  life  of  mankind  deep- 
ened and  strengthened.  Every  such  renewed 
consciousness  of  communion  with  Catholicism 
is  a  sacramental  reinforcement  of  the  spiritual 
and  "over-individual"  elements  of  his  interior 
life — an  inward  grace  mediated  through  an  out- 
ward sign"  (p.  37).  As  he  states  on  page  39: 
"Religion  aims  at  communicating  God  to  man, 
at  filling  the  soul  with  the  inexhaustible  riches  of 
divine  truth  and  goodness  and  loveliness.  It 
cannot  put  the  infinite  into  a  nutshell;  it  cannot 
put  the  whole  truth  into  three  words.  Though 
it  may — and  often  does — sin  against  simplicity, 
both  by  undue  compression  and  undue  diffusive- 
ness all  the  language  at  its  disposal  is  not  enough 
for  what  it  has  got  to  convey."  We  elaborate 
somewhat  on  this  ritualism  and  social  setting  of 
service  because  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  pre- 
sents these  claims,  even  in  those  who  drift  away 
from  her  accepted  standards,  as  Tyrrell  is  a  case 
in  point,  and  one  well  qualified  to  formulate 
them.  They  need,  however,  no  refutation,  espe- 
cially since  Tyrrell  gives  us  on  p.  49  a  striking 


256  AUTHORITY 

passage  in  which  he  discloses  a  susceptibility  to  a 
deeper  and  spiritual  view  of  Authority.  "As  for 
the  long  and  sordid  record  of  clerical  scandal  that 
we  find  in  Church  history,  the  persistent  recru- 
descences of  avarice,  ambition,  and  licentiousness 
in  the  ministers  of  the  sanctuary,  it  is  hard  to  see 
what  more  it  can  prove  against  Catholicism  than 
the  like  phenomena  in  the  ministers  of  law  and 
government  can  prove  against  law  and  govern- 
ment. The  attempt  to  deny  or  mitigate  such 
charges  seems  to  imply  the  worst  of  'sacerdotal- 
ism'— namely,  the  right  of  priests  in  virtue  of 
their  merely  official  and  ecclesiastical  superiority 
to  that  honor  which  belongs  solely  to  personal, 
ethical,  and  'charismatic'  superiority.  It  is 
all-important  to  keep  distinct  the  invisible — and 
spiritual  hierarchy  from  the  visible — and  official 
hierarchy  of  the  church;  to  see  in  the  latter  but 
the  symbol  and  servant  of  the  former;  to  see  in 
the  former  Christ  Himself,  vicariously  repre- 
sented by  the  latter;  to  distinguish  the  pre-con- 
stitutional  formless  church  from  the  governmen- 
tal form  which  it  has  elaborated  for  its  own  apos- 
tohc  needs.  Deplorable  as  they  are,  the  corrup- 
tions of  the  official  hierarchy  keeps  this  vital  dis- 
tinction clear  before  the  Catholic,  and  save  us 
from  man-worship." 

It  is  evident  that  the  whole  question,  in  spite 
of  all  confusion  on  the  subject,  turns  on  a  spiritual 


NEEDS  AND  UTILITY  257 

conception.  That  the  whole  Romanish  machin- 
ery of  sacramental  symbolism  is  pleaded  to  be 
needed  or  helpful  for  spiritual  understanding  is 
an  admission  of  the  spiritual  poverty  of  the 
church,  and  similarly  is  it  a  sign,  that  the 
Protestant  Churches  are  at  a  low  ebb  where 
they  resort  to  the  ritualistic  props  of  religion. 
It  is  all  an  effort  to  bolster  up  the  felt 
unreality  of  the  spiritual  life,  which  Presi- 
dent King  discusses  in  his  popular  lectures  be- 
fore Yale  Divinity  School  on  "The  Seeming  Un- 
reality of  the  Spiritual  Life."  He  opens  with 
the  remark:  "Yes,  but  why  has  no  one  ever  seen 
God?"  It  is  Philip's  old  question:  "Show  us  the 
father."  Does  it  avail  "to  mediate  an  inward 
grace  through  an  outward  sign,"  to  "communi- 
cate God  to  man"  by  all  sorts  or  ritual,  and  sym- 
bols, to  go  into  a  sanctuary  with  the  cultivated 
sense  that  a  "collective  spirit"  world-wide  and 
ancient  is  expressed  in  the  worship?  How  in- 
finitely loftier  rings  the  truth  that  "God  is  in 
His  holy  temple,"  and  in  our  worship  to  stand 
in  His  august  presence  with  none  other  than  the 
High-priest  Jesus  Christ  mounting  gTiard 
over  the  conscience.  Calvinists  are  not  con- 
trolled by  needs,  rather  would  we  stand  under 
the  authority  of  God's  law,  graciously  placed  in 
our  hearts  by  the  son  of  His  love,  Jesus  Christ, 
our    Lord.     No    congregation     or    church    is 


258  AUTHORITY 

charged  with  communicating  God  to  man.  He 
is  self -revealing  through,  or  in  spite  of  the  visible 
means  which  we  may  devise,  but  surely  operates 
even  by  the  concession  of  the  ritualists  in  spiritual 
manner.  He  is  not  bound  or  conditioned  in  the 
work  of  grace,  and  no  respecter  of  persons.  All 
these  familiar  truths  should  shatter  forever  the 
assumption  of  priestly  devices,  were  it  not  that 
the  Jew  is  still  strong  with  us.  Inward  grace 
may  be  expressed  by  outward  sign,  but  the  medi- 
ation of  grace  is  never  bound  to  ritualistic  or 
sacramental  practices.  The  oft-repeated  re- 
mark, that  the  stern,  austere  conception  of 
spirituality,  which  dispenses  largely  with  the 
aesthetic  and  emotional  as  avenues  of  worship, 
limits  itself  "to  a  certain  class,  and  a  certain  tem- 
perament and  a  certain  culture"  is  wholly  false, 
a  historic  review  of  Protestantism  is  sufficient  to 
reveal  the  bareness  of  this  assertion.  Does  a 
closer  examination  of  this  ritualistic,  ceremonial 
procedure  in  the  service  of  the  church  not  corrob- 
orate this  view? 

Lessing  asked:  "Besteht  iiberhaupt  etwas  das 
nicht  bedeutet?"  and  Longfellow  said  in  "The 
harvest  moon": 

"All  things  are  symbols :  the  eternal  shows 
Of  nature  have  their  image  in  the  mind." 

Thus  it  is  that  we  may  speak  of  "a  sympathetic 


NEEDS  AND  UTILITY  259 

fallacy  of  nature,"  positing  of  sentiments,  feel- 
ings and  meanings  in  the  world  around  us. 
Definite  forms  of  course  and  the  pictorial  repre- 
sentation, the  ceremonial  acts  have  a  specific  af- 
fective power  upon  the  imagination.  We  need 
not  decide  which  it  is  most  with  the  beholder 
a  reading  into,  as  in  "the  sympathetic  fallacy  of 
nature"  or  an  interpretation  of  some  idea-repre- 
senting form.  This  depends  largely  on  the  con- 
creteness  of  the  symbol.  In  the  service  of  re- 
ligion, by  association  as  well  as  by  their  more 
definite  meaning  the  symbols,  in  order  to  be  help- 
ful to  the  ends  they  serve,  are  more  specific  and 
concrete.  In  the  jargon  of  the  modern  school,  a 
fixed  symbol  however,  be  it  in  act,  or  form,  or 
pictorial  representation,  cannot  well  be  a  lasting 
expression  of  progressive,  expanding,  yea!  revo- 
lutionizing thought.  And  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  this  attempt  at  visualizing  the  unseen  does 
not  tend  to  spirituality.  The  main  issue  laid 
bare  in  ritual  and  ceremony  is  the  appeal  to  the 
senses,  the  aesthetic  element  pressed  into  service 
as  an  avenue  for  the  spiritual  life,  with  an  emo- 
tional response  that  arouses  rather  than  sustains 
the  Christian  responsibility.  For  this  reason — 
though  not  as  yet  in  pictorial  and  ceremonial  ap- 
peal, except  such  as  processions,  parades,  and 
meetings  of  a  more  or  less  undesigned,  and  there- 
fore incidental  sort — revivalist  resort  to  this  more 


260  AUTHORITY 

sensual  appeal.  In  Sunday-schools  the  banner- 
class  and  hundred  and  one  devices  to  render  con- 
crete our  Christian  allegiance  to  the  Master 
grows  more  and  more,  and  leans  stronger  upon 
the  outward  sign  in  proportion  as  inward  grace 
is  absent.  Yet  the  outward  sign  far  from  being 
a  guarantee  for  the  mediation  of  inward  grace 
renders  us  dependent  on  it  in  our  spiritual  as- 
pirations. Our  catholic  brethren  abuse  the  ar- 
gument, the  appeal  to  the  senses  is  not  excluded 
in  the  puritan  service,  but  God  is  not  sensually- 
apprehended,  an  emotional  appeal  is  not  dis- 
carded, but  the  spiritual  understanding  means 
more,  the  many  devices  to  render  concrete  the 
spiritual  and  unseen  are  perfectly  legitimate 
when  they  only  serve  in  furthering  spiritual  life 
and  spiritual  understanding  which  they  mostly 
fail  to  do.  Moreover  we  require  the  catholic 
brethren  and  those  of  the  reformed  confession 
with  ritualistic  and  ceremonial  tendencies  to  face 
squarely  the  fact  that  the  plea  in  favor  of  sym- 
bolizing the  unseen  is  made  in  behalf  of  a  de- 
ficiency in  spiritual  understanding.  If  it  is  not 
well  to  give  strong  meat  unto  babes,  does  it  fol- 
low that  those  who  crave  meat  should  be  fed  on 
milk?  In  short,  then,  needs  should  not  enter  the 
sanctuary  to  control  the  service  there,  leading  the 
worship  away  from  "the  ministry  of  the  Word." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  SOURCE  AND  GUARANTEE  OF 
AUTHORITY 

Christianity  interpreted  as  a  mere  historic  fact 
cannot  be  reduced  to  a  series  of  events,  the  signal 
success  of  which  had  its  origin  in  an  unimportant 
cause.  When  Harnack  in  his  "Die  Ausbreitung 
des  Christentums"  seeks  to  explain  the  spread  of 
Christianity  by  arguing  that  it  won  the  world  to 
itself  by  absorbing  all  the  foreign  elements  with 
which  it  came  in  contact,  he  is  consistent  with  his 
subjective  standpoint.  But  it  may  readily  be 
seen  that  this  explanation  is  made  at  the  cost  of 
Christianity  itself.  It  amounts  practically  to 
saying  that  Christianity's  conquest  of  the  world 
is  a  mere  appearance.  Real  Christianity  never 
ran  a  historic  course.  Harnack  thus  must  be  at 
a  loss  to  understand  the  hysteric  accusation  of 
Christianity  of  Nietzsche  for  checking  the  bru- 
tality of  human  instincts.  Historic  Christianity 
is  merely  a  mixture  of  different  pagan  elements 
on  which  the  cross  of  the  early  Christians  was 
set.  How  this  became  possible  is  difficult  to  un- 
derstand on  Harnack's  supposition.  One  is  re- 
minded of  Nietzsche's  bitter  sneer:  "In  Wirk- 

261 


262  AUTHORITY 

lichkweit  gab  es  nur  ein  Christ  und  der  starb  am 
Kreuz";  and  on  the  other  hand  of  Professor 
Freeman's  remark:  "You  say,  Am  I  still  a  be- 
liever? Certainly.  That  is,  I  believe  the  Chris- 
tion  religion  to  be  from  God,  in  a  sense  beyond 
that  in  which  all  things  are  from  God.  One  can- 
not study  history  without  seeing  this.  As  I  said 
in  one  of  my  published  lectures :  'For  Csesar  Au- 
gustus to  be  led  to  worship  a  crucified  Jew  was  a 
greater  miracle  than  the  cleaving  of  rocks  or  the 
raising  of  the  dead.'  " 

Dr.  Geerhardus  Vos,  discussing  the  causes 
which  have  been  operative  in  spreading  the  opin- 
ion that  Christian  faith  is  in  its  essence  independ- 
ent of  historical  facts,  says:  "The  aim  of  modern 
historical  research  is  to  view  developments  from 
the  inside,  to  catch  the  subjective  tone  and  color 
of  the  period,  to  study  it  pre-eminently  from  its 
human  point  of  view.  Applying  this  to  Sacred 
History  and  the  Scriptures  leads  almost  inevi- 
tably to  a  wrong  distribution  of  emphasis.  In 
redemption  and  revelation  naturally  not  the  hu- 
main,  subjective  side,  not  the  religious  views  and 
sentiments  of  men,  stand  in  the  foreground,  but 
the  great  objective  acts  and  interpositions  of 
God,  the  history  as  it  is  in  itself,  not  as  it  re- 
flected itself  in  the  mind  of  man.  Facts,  rather 
than  the  spirit  of  times  or  the  consciousness  of 
periods,  should  be  here  the  primary  object  of 


GUARANTEE  OF  AUTHORITY     263 

investigation."  Indeed,  though  we  admit  the 
human  factor  as  determining  the  forms  of  Chris- 
tianity in  its  historic  course,  it  ought  to  be  clear 
that  unless  objective  reality  is  recognized  as  its 
ground,  yea,  Christ  as  its  cause  and  center.  Chris- 
tian theology  will  be  cast  adrift  on  the  eddying 
tides  of  human  opinion. 

Dr.  Forsyth  argues  eloquently  for  "the  Cross 
as  the  Final  Seat  of  Authority."  {Contempor- 
ary Review,  October,  1899.) 

He  elaborates  the  idea  that  the  cross  is  what 
God  has  done,  does,  and  will  do  in  an  eternal  act 
of  grace  for  the  sin-stricken  world.  The  source 
and  seat  of  man's  final  authority  is,  therefore, 
God  at  the  heart  of  man  (common  grace),  espe- 
cially where  man  responds  by  faith  to  His  gra- 
cious revelation  (special  grace).  His  words  are 
a  fitting  close  to  the  drift  and  temper  of  this 
discussion. 

"We  must  have  for  these  days  an  authority  which  is 
in  its  nature  emancipatory  and  not  repressive,  empow- 
ering and  not  enfeebling.  That  authority  is  the  Re- 
deemer's. The  object  of  human  faith  must  be  the 
source  of  human  freedom,  individual  or  social.  Society 
can  only  be  saved  by  what  saves  the  soul.  The  evan- 
gelical contention  is  that  that  object  of  faith  is  the  Re- 
deemer, directly  and  alone.  It  is  the  straightness  of 
the  Cross,  that  is  the  condition  of  critical,  speculative, 
and  social  freedom  for  the  world. 


264  AUTHORITY 

"The  real  and  final  seat  of  authority  is  Evangelical. 
It  is  the  cross  of  Jesus  Christ.  Neither  soul  nor  society 
knows  anything  as  a  final  authority  but  Him  crucified. 
The  sovereign  and  the  cement  of  society  is  the  Saviour 
of  the  soul.  That  rules  man  which  rules  the  conscience ; 
and  that  rules  the  conscience  which  forgives  it  and  re- 
deems. The  conscience  is  not  the  ruler,  but  only  the 
ruler's  throne.  The  center  of  authority  is  the  world's 
central  moral  personality  and  order.  It  is  the  act  of 
redemption.  It  is  not  the  ideal  but  the  Redeemer  of 
the  conscience  that  is  its  King.  The  cross  is  the  seat 
of  moral  empire  and  human  unity.  There  is  more  una- 
nimity among  the  saved  about  the  Cross  than  there  is 
among  the  enlightened  about  truth.  The  believer  has 
an  authority  for  society  that  the  thinker  has  not. 

"The  absolute  is  the  only  final  authority,  and  we  touch 
that  by  the  moral  of  personal  faith  alone.  Man  is  a 
free  creature  even  more  than  the  rational;  the  lower 
animals  are  more  rational  than  free.  And  it  must  be 
in  the  region  of  his  distinctive  freedom  that  his  King 
resides ;  it  is  there  he  needs  and  finds  his  authority.  It 
exists  for  free  will  rather  than  for  free  thought.  For 
knowledge  and  thought  there  may  be  order  and  limit, 
but  there  is  no  authority,  which,  in  the  real,  absolute, 
and  final  sense,  exists  for  man  as  moral  not  as  intel- 
lectual. 

"Something  is  at  once  the  final  victory  and  the  present 
power;  some  purpose  runs  through  all  things  as  the 
truth  in  all  and  the  crown  upon  all;  some  will  which 
turns  mere  matter  into  purpose,  which  elects  to  proceed 
in  the  way  of  selection,  and  sustains  it  in  the  way  of 


GUARANTEE  OF  AUTHORITY     265 

communion.  We  must  find  the  end  of  living  in  the 
living  God,  the  goal  of  all  is  the  stay  of  all.  And  this 
is  a  power  which  we  have  only  in  the  revelation  of  the 
Cross  and  its  foregone  conquest.  The  empirical  world 
is  far  too  vast,  complex,  and  tragical  now  for  any 
philosophy  of  history  to  surmise  and  the  categories  of 
an  irresistible  ideal  imbedded  in  thought.  We  must 
turn  for  our  certainty  elsewhere  where  philosophy  fails 
as  a  foundation.  Our  chief  knowledge  is  that  whereby 
we  are  known.  We  are  cast  upon  faith,  neither  as  a 
pis  aller,  nor  as  a  leap  in  the  dark,  upon  a  faith  which 
finds  in  the  historic  work  of  the  super-historic  Christ 
an  absolute  warrant  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  as  the  close 
and  crown  of  all.  Glory  is  but  the  consummation  of 
grace,  and  grace  arises  in  the  very  heart  of  nature  and 
history  though  it  springs  out  of  neither.  The  Kingdom 
of  God  is  to  faith  the  immanent  truth  of  things,  their 
soul  and  nisus,  subtly,  slowly  supreme  on  earth,  and 
eternal  in  the  heavens.  In  Jesus  Christ  we  have  the 
final  cause  of  history,  and  the  incarnation  of  that  King- 
dom of  God,  which  is  the  only  teleology  large  enough 
for  the  whole  world."     (London  Quarterly/,  Oct.,  1905.) 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 


Abbott   (Lyman):  37. 
Anselm  (St.)  :  234. 
Aquinus    (St.   Thomas   of) : 

85. 
Arnold  (Matthew)  :  46,  123. 
Athanasius:    149. 
Augustine  (St.) :  65. 

Bain:  175. 

Baldwin  (Mark).  6,  48,  49. 

Balfour:  52,  99. 

Ballard:  212. 

Balzac   (Honore  de)  :  76. 

Bampton   (John)  :  234. 

Bargy:  163. 

Baur:  135. 

Bavinck:  186,  220. 

Beaulieu    (Anatole    Leroy) : 

22. 
Bettex:  184. 
Blackstone    (Sir   William)  : 

16. 
Bowen:  135. 
Bradley:  121. 
Brooks  (Phillips):  13. 
Briihl  (Levy):  193. 
Bruno:   135. 
Bryce  (James)  :  25. 
Buelow   (Prince  von) :  36. 
Butler:  115. 

Caird:  126. 


Caldecott:  86. 
Calvin:    203,    149. 
Cannegieter:  236. 
Carol   (Lewis):  44. 
Chapman:  206. 
Chesterton:  116. 
Clifford:  173. 
Clough:  166. 
Coe:  188. 
Condorcet:  3. 
Comte:  113. 
Corneille:   167. 

Darwin:  52. 
Dennert:  53. 
Desmoulins:  62. 
Dewey:    194,   224. 
Dickens:  46. 
Doumergue:  209. 
Doumic:   42. 
Durkheim:  40. 
Dyde:  127. 

Ebrard:  191. 

Eliot:  91. 

Eucken:  102,  216,  233. 

Ferri:  6. 

Feuerback:  134,  137. 

Fevre:  23. 

Fichte:  5,  87,  131,  235. 

Flint:   101. 


267 


268 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 


Fogel  (Philip):  40. 

Forrest:  240. 

Forsyth:  53,  143,  152,  156, 

167,  208,  263. 
Fouillee:  61,  67,  81. 
Freeman:  139,  262. 
Fries:   129. 
FuUerton:  227. 

Gans:  127. 

Garner:  108. 

Genesis  (1:27):  174. 

Gess:  191. 

Guy  an:  55. 

Gibbons:  66,  79,  143. 

Giddings:   10. 

Goethe:  43,  101,  202,  137. 

Gordon   (George  A.) :  1 

Greene,  Jr.    (W.  Brenton) : 

235. 
Greer   (Bishop)  :  79. 
Gregory  (Pope)  :  34. 

Haeckel:  102. 
Halevy:  101. 
Hall  (Francis  J.):  115,  117, 

216. 
Hall    (Stanley):   189. 
Hamilton     (Sir     William  )j?: 

115. 
Harcourt    (Duke    of):21. 
Harnack:  202,  261. 
Hartmann     (Eduard    von) : 

198. 
Heath  (Bawden)  :  222. 
Hebrews;        (xi:3):        119, 

(xi:i):  204. 


Hegel:   122,  124,  125,  128, 

130,  132. 
Helmholz:    175. 
Hill   (David  Jaynes) :    19. 
Hoffding:  56,  195,  198,  199. 
Holland:  73,  229. 
Hooker:   245. 
Hugo  (Victor):  76. 

Jacobus:  207, 

James  (William):  2,  3,  11, 
44,  90,  148,  171,  173, 
175,  176,  177,  179,  188, 
214,  215,  217,  218,  221, 
224. 

Jevons:  229. 

John    (xviii:38):  240. 

Kalthoff:    137. 

Kant:    121,    124,    199,    225, 

226. 
Kassowitz:    53. 
Kephart:   79. 
King:  252,  257. 
Kapper:   102. 
Krabbe:  109. 
Krause:  129. 
Kuyper      (Abraham) :      34, 

69,  70. 

Lacy:   110. 

Ladd:  39,  58,  84,  137,  138. 

La  Fontaine:   191. 

Laval  eye:   108. 

Le  Bon:   189. 

Lessing:  258. 

Liddon:   209. 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 


269 


Lilley:  247- 
Lincoln:   131. 
Loisy:  65,  202,  243. 
Longfellow:  258. 
Lowell:  64. 
Luther:    137. 
Lyman:  180,  182. 

MacArthur  (R.  Stuart) :  79. 
McCall  Mission:   190. 
McPheeters:  163. 
Maurice:   51,  69,   109,   122, 

183. 
Mansel:  121. 
Martensen:   191,    197. 
Menzel:  129. 
Marheineke:   129. 
Martineau:  38. 
Marx   (Karl):  135. 
Matthew:   169. 
Maupassant   (Guy  de) :  46. 
Mill  (John  Stuart)  :  94,  110. 
Mirabeau:  89. 
Moberly:  117. 
Monod  (Leopold)  :  237. 
Montague:  110. 
Montesquieu:   108. 
Miiller   (Max):  91. 

Newman  (John  Henry)  :  95. 
Nietzsche:   110,  201. 

Olmstead   (C.  Tyler):  239. 
Ormond   (A.  T.) :  83. 

Palmer:  71,  199. 
Parkhurst:  79. 


Pascal:  49. 

Patton    (Francis    Landey) : 

211. 
Poulin:  209. 
Paulsen:  60,  102. 
Pauly:  53. 
Perry:  145,  182. 
Pollock      (Sir     Frederick) : 

72. 
Pope:  135. 
Powell:   192. 
Proverbs    (iv:23):   236. 

Rashdall  (Hastings)  :  43. 

Raymond   (B.   P.):  79. 

Remensnyder :   79. 

Renan:  65. 

Reville:  115. 

Reymond    (Du   Bois) :   173. 

Ritschie:  110,  192. 

Ritschl:  96. 

Rittelmeyer:  98. 

Romanes:   201. 

Romans  (i:20):  119. 

Rousseau:  110,  111. 

Royce  (Josiah)  :  43,  99,  134, 

232. 
Riickert:  68. 

Sabatier:   113,   118. 
Sainte  Beuve:   141. 
Schmiedel:  138. 
Schopenhauer:    93,    125. 
Scherer:  188. 
Schiller:  111,  182. 
Schiirer:   72,    110. 


270 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 


Seth   (Andrew):  101,  120. 
Simon   (Saint)  :  3. 
Smith  (Monroe):  153. 
Smyth   (Newman)  :   79. 
Spencer  (Herbert)  :  9,  52. 
Stanton:  93. 
Starbuck:   188. 
Sterrett:  108,  128,  178. 
Strauss:  135. 
Suderman:  41. 
Swete:   97. 

Tennyson:  87. 
Thomasius:  191. 
Trendelenburg:   127. 
Tuft  (James  H.)  :  2. 
Turner  (Sir  James) :  63. 
Tyrrell:  249,  253. 


Vincent   (G.  E.) :   11. 
Virchow:   102. 
Visscher:  8,  217. 
Vries    (Hugo   de) :    52. 
Voltaire:   135. 
Vos   (Geerhardus)  :  262. 

Wesley  (John)  :  80. 

Westminster  Confession : 
118. 

Wildenbruch    (von):  31. 

William  the  Great,  Em- 
peror of  Germany:  32,  35. 

Wundt:   102. 


Ziegler:  102. 

Zueblin   (Charles):   17. 


